Nan listened to her patiently.  Then, still very quietly: 

“I must marry him,” she said.  “It will be the one decent thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

CHAPTER XXXVI

ROGER’S REFUSAL

The next morning at breakfast only one letter lay beside Nan’s plate.  As she recognised Maryon Rooke’s small, squarish handwriting, with its curious contrasts of heavy downstrokes and very light terminals, the colour deepened in her cheeks.  Her slight confusion passed unnoticed, however, as everyone else was absorbed in his or her individual share of the morning’s mail.

For a moment Nan hesitated, conscious of an intense disinclination to open the letter.  It gave her a queer feeling of panic, recalling with poignant vividness the day when she and Maryon had last been together.  At length, somewhat dreading what it might contain, she opened it and began to read.

“I’ve had a blazing letter from young Sandy McBain, which has increased my respect for him enormously,” wrote Maryon.  “I’ve come to the conclusion that I deserve all the names he called me.  Nan, how do you manage to make everyone so amazingly devoted to you?  I think it must be that ridiculously short upper lip of yours, or your ‘blue-violet’ eyes, or some other of your absurd and charming characteristics.

“I shall probably go abroad for a bit—­to recover my self-respect.  I’m not feeling particularly proud of myself just now, and it always spoils my enjoyment of things if I can’t be genuinely pleased with my ego.  Don’t cut me when next we meet, if fortune is ever kind enough to me to let us meet again.  Because, for once in my life, I’m really sorry for my sins.

“I believe that somewhere in the ramshackle thing I call my soul, I’m glad Sandy took you away from me.  Though there are occasional moments when I feel murderous towards him.

“Yours

“MARYON.”

Nan laid down the closely-written sheet with a half-smile, half-sigh—­could one ever regard Maryon Rooke without a smile overtaken by a sigh?  The letter somewhat cheered her, washing away what remained of bitterness in her thoughts towards him.  It was very characteristic of the man, with its intense egotism—­almost every sentence beginning with an “I”—­and its lightly cynical note.  Yet beneath the surface flippancy Nan could read a genuine remorse and self-reproach.  And in some strange way it comforted her a little to know that Maryon was sorry.  After all, there is something good even in the worst of us.

“Had a nice letter, Nan?” asked Barry, looking up from his own correspondence.  “You’re wearing a smile of sorts.”

“Yes.  It was—­rather a nice letter.  Good and bad mixed, I think,” she answered.

“Then you’re lucky,” observed Kitty.  There was a rather frightened look in her eyes.  “We’ll go into your study after breakfast, Barry.  I want to consult you about one of my letters.  It’s—­it’s undiluted bad, I think.”