“Well, then, my dear, try to solace yourself with the fact that ‘everything comes at last to him who knows how to wait.’”

“But it doesn’t!”

Penelope Craig reflected a moment.

“Do you—­know—­how to wait?” she demanded, with a significant little accent on the word “know.”

“I’ve waited in vain.  No white pony has ever come, and if it trotted in now—­why, I don’t want one any longer.  I tell you, Penny”—­tapping an emphatic forefinger on the other’s knee—­“you never get your wishes until you’ve out-grown them.”

“You’ve reached the mature age of three-and-twenty”—­drily.  “It’s a trifle early to be so definite.”

“Not a bit!  I want my wishes now, while I’m young and can enjoy them—­lots of money, and amusement, and happiness!  They’ll be no good to me when I’m seventy or so!”

“Even at seventy,” remarked Penelope sagely, “wealth is better than poverty—­much.  And I can imagine amusement and happiness being quite desirable even at three score years and ten.”

Nan Davenant grimaced.

“Philosophers,” she observed, “are a highly irritating species.”

“But what do you want, my dear?  You’re always kicking against the pricks.  What do you really want?”

The coals slipped with a grumble in the grate and a blue flame shot up the chimney.  Nan stretched out her hand for the matches and lit a cigarette.  Then she blew a cloud of speculative smoke into the air.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.  Adding whimsically:  “I believe that’s the root of the trouble.”

Penelope regarded her critically.

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” she returned.  “During the war you lived on excitement—­”

“I worked jolly hard,” interpolated Nan indignantly.

The other’s eyes softened.

“I know you worked,” she said quickly.  “Like a brick.  But all the same you did live on excitement—­narrow shaves of death during air-raids, dances galore, and beautiful boys in khaki, home on leave in convenient rotation, to take you anywhere and everywhere.  You felt you were working for them and they knew they were fighting for you, and the whole four years was just one pulsing, throbbing rush.  Oh, I know!  You were caught up into it just the same as the rest of the world, and now that it’s over and normal existence is feebly struggling up to the surface again, you’re all to pieces, hugely dissatisfied, like everyone else.”

“At least I’m in the fashion, then!”

Penelope smiled briefly.

“Small credit to you if you are,” she retorted.  “People are simply shirking work nowadays.  And you’re as bad as anyone.  You’ve not tried to pick up the threads again—­you’re just idling round.”

“It’s catching, I expect,” temporised Nan beguilingly.

But the lines on Penelope’s face refused to relax.

“It’s because it’s easier to play than to work,” she replied with grim candour.