Five minutes later she heard his footsteps as he came striding along the corridor on to which the West Parlour opened.  Then the door-handle was turned with imperious eagerness, someone switched on the light, and he came in—­splashed with mud, his face red from the lash of the wind, his hair beaded with moisture from the misty air.  He looked just what he was—­a typical big sporting Englishman—­as he tramped into the room and made his way to the warmth of the blazing log fire.

Nan looked up and threw him a little smile of greeting.

“Hullo, darling, there you are!” He stooped and kissed her, and she forced herself to sit quiet and unshrinking while his lips sought and found her own.

“Have you had a good day?” she asked.

“Topping.  Best run of the season.  We found at once and went right away.”  And he launched out into an enthusiastic description of the day’s sport.

Nan listened patiently.  She wasn’t in the least interested, really, but she had been trying very hard latterly not to let Roger pay for what had been her own blunder—­not to let him pay even in the small things of daily life.  So she feigned an interest she was far from feeling and discussed the day’s hunting with snatches of melody from the concerto running through her mind all the time.

The man and woman offered a curious contrast as they talked; he, big, virile, muddied with his day in the saddle, an aroma of mingled damp and leather exuding from his clothes as they steamed in front of the fire—­she, slim, silken-clad, delicately wrought by nature and over-finely strung by reason of the high-pitched artist’s life she had led.

Roger himself seemed suddenly struck by the contrast.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, surveying her rather ruefully.  “We’re a pretty fair example of beauty and the beast, aren’t we?”

Nan looked back at him composedly—­at the strong, ugly face and far-visioned eyes.

“Not in the least,” she replied judicially.  “We’re—­different, that’s all.  And”—­smiling faintly—­“you’re rather grubby just at present.”

“I suppose I am.”  He glanced ruefully down at his mud-bespattered coat.  “I oughtn’t to have come in here like this,” he added with an awkward attempt at apology.  “Only I couldn’t wait to see you.”

“Well, go and have your tub and a change,” she said, with a small, indulgent laugh.  “And by dinner time you’ll have a better opinion of your outward man.”

It was not until after dinner that she mentioned the concerto to him, snatching an opportunity when they chanced to find themselves alone for a few minutes.  Some distracted young married woman from the village had called to ask Lady Gertrude’s advice as to how she should deal with a husband who seemed to find his chief entertainment in life in beating her with a broomstick and in threatening to “do her in” altogether if the application of the broomstick proved barren of wifely improvement.  Accordingly, Lady Gertrude, accompanied by her aide-de-camp, Isobel, were interviewing the poor, terrified creature with a view to ameliorating her lot.