“I think you’ll find,” said Isobel, as she and Roger strolled back to the car, “that the light will be quite good enough for painting.”

And that seemingly harmless remark lodged in Roger’s mind and rankled there throughout the whole of the following day when the Peabody lunch took place as arranged—­but lacking the presence of Maryon Rooke and Nan.

CHAPTER XXX

SEEKING TO FORGET

“And this is my holiday!” exclaimed Maryon, standing back from his easel the better to view the effect of his work.  “Nan, you’ve a lot to answer for.”

Another fortnight had gone by, and the long hours passed is the music-room, which had been temporarily converted into a studio, were beginning to show fruit in the shape of a nearly completed portrait.

Nan slipped down from the makeshift “throne.”

“May I come and look?”

Rooke moved aside.

“Yes, if you like.  I’ve been working at the face to-day.”

She regarded the picture for some time in silence, Rooke watching her intently the while.

“Well?” he said at last, interrogatively.

“Maryon”—­she spoke slowly—­“do I really look like—­that?”

He nodded.

“Yes,” he replied quietly.  “When you let yourself go—­when you take off the meaningless mask I complained of.”

With that uncanny discernment of his—­that faculty for painting people’s souls, as Nan described it—­he had sensed the passionate, wistful, unhappy spirit which looked out from her eyes, and the face on the canvas gave back a dumb appeal that was almost painfully arresting.

Nan frowned.

“You’d no right to do it,” she exclaimed a little breathlessly.

“I painted what I saw.”

She was silent, tremulously disturbed.  He could see the quick rise and fall of her breast beneath the filmy white of her gown.

“Nan,” he went on in low, tense tones.  “Did you think I could be with you, day after day like this, and not—­find out?  Could I have painted your face, loving each line of it, and not learned the truth?” She stretched out her hand as though to check him, but he paid no heed.  “The truth that Roger is nothing to you—­never will be!”

“He’s the man I’m going to marry,” she said unevenly.

“And I’m only the man who loves you! . . .  But because I failed once, putting love second, must I be punished eternally?  I’m ready to put it first now—­to lay all I have and all I’ve done on its altar.”

“What—­what do you mean?” she stammered.

He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and drew her nearer to him.

“Is it hard to guess, Nan? . . .  I want you to leave this life you hate and come with me.  Let me take you away—­right away from it all—­and, somewhere we’ll find happiness together.”

She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes.