“I asked her if she intended to marry Roger, anyway—­whether it affected my marriage or not,” she said.  “And she told me that she should marry him ‘in any case.’  But now, I believe it was just a splendid lie to make me happy.”

“It’s done that, hasn’t it?” asked Ralph, smiling a little.

Penelope’s eyes shone softly.

“You know,” she answered.  “But—­Nan has paid for it.”

The telephone hell buzzed suddenly into the middle of the conversation and Penelope flew to answer it.  When she came back her face held a look of mingled apprehension and relief.

“Who rang up?” asked Ralph.

“It was Kitty.  She’s back in town.  I’ve told her Nan is here, and she’s coming round at once.  She said she’d got some bad news for her, but I think it’ll have to be kept from her.  She isn’t fit to stand anything more just now.”

Ralph pulled out his watch.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay to see Kitty,” he said.  “I’ve that oratorio rehearsal fixed for half-past ten.”

“Then, my dear, you’d better get off at once,” answered Penelope with her usual common sense.  “You can’t do any good here, and it’s quite certain you’ll upset things there if you’re late.”

So that when Kitty arrived, a few minutes later, it was Penelope alone who received her.  She was looking very blooming after her sojourn in the south of France.

“I’ve left Barry behind at Cannes,” she announced.  “The little green tables have such a violent attraction for him, and he’s just evolved a new and infallible system which he wants to try.  Funnily enough, I had a craving for home.  I can’t think why—­just in the middle of the season there!  But I’m glad, now, that I came.”  Her small, piquant face shadowed suddenly.  “I’ve bad news,” she began abruptly, after a pause.  Penelope checked her.

“Hear mine first,” she said quickly.  And launched into an account of the happenings of the last three days—­Nan’s quarrel with Roger, her sudden rush up to town and unexpected meeting with Peter at Maryon’s studio, and finally the distraught condition in which she had discovered her last night after Peter had gone.

“Oh, Penny!  How dreadful!  How dreadful it all is!” exclaimed Kitty pitifully, when the other had finished.  “I knew that Peter cared a long time ago.  But not Nan! . . .  Though I remember once, at Mallow, wondering the tiniest bit if she were losing her heart to him.”

“Well, she’s done it.  If you’d seen them last night, after they’d parted, you’d have had no doubts.  They were both absolutely broken up.”

Kitty moved restlessly.

“And I suppose it’s really my fault,” she said unhappily.  “I brought them together in the first instance.  Penny, I was a fool.  But I was so afraid—­so afraid of Nan with Maryon.  He might have made her do anything!  He could have twisted her round his little finger at the time if he’d wanted to.  Thank goodness he’d the decency not to try—­that.”