“I should like, Nan, with your permission, to double your allowance and make it six hundred a year.”

Nan gasped.

“You see,” he pursued, “though I’m only a mere man, I know the cost of living has soared sky-high, including”—­with a sly glance at Penelope—­“the cost of menservants and maidservants.”

“Well, but really, Uncle, I could manage with less than that,” protested Nan.  “Four or five hundred, with what we earn, would be quite sufficient—­quite.”

St. John regarded her reflectively.

“It might be—­for some people.  But not for you, my child.  I know your temperament too well!  You’ve the Davenant love of beauty and the instinct to surround yourself with all that’s worth having, and I hate to think of its being thwarted just for lack of money.  After all, money is only of value for what it can procure—­what it does for you.  Well, being a Davenant, you want a lot of the things that money can procure—­things which wouldn’t mean anything at all to many people.  They wouldn’t even notice whether they were there or not.  So six hundred a year it will be, my dear.  On the same understanding as before—­that you renounce the income should you marry.”

Nan gripped his hand hard.

“Uncle,” she began.  “I can’t thank you—­”

“Don’t, my dear.  I merely want to give you a little freedom.  You mayn’t have it always.  You won’t if you marry”—­with a twinkle.  “Now, may I have my usual cup of coffee—­not from the hands of your Hebe!”

She nodded and slipped out of the room to make the coffee, while Penelope turned towards the visitor with an expression of dismay on her face.

“Do forgive me, Lord St. John,” she said.  “But is it wise?  Aren’t you taking from her all incentive to work?”

“I don’t believe in pot-boiling,” he replied promptly.  “The best work of a talent like Nan’s is not the work that’s done to buy the dinner.”

He lit another cigarette before he spoke again.  Then he went on rather wistfully: 

“I may be wrong, Penelope.  But remember, my wife was a Davenant, nearer than Nan by one generation to Angele de Varincourt.  And she was never happy!  Though I loved her, I couldn’t make her happy.”

“I should have thought you would have made her happy if any man could,” said Penelope gently.

“My dear, it’s given to very few men to make a woman of temperament happy.  And Nan is so like my dear, dead Annabel that, if for no other reason, I should always wish to give her what happiness I can.”  He paused, then went on thoughtfully:  “Unfortunately money won’t buy happiness.  I can’t do very much for her—­only give her what money can buy.  But even the harmony of material environment means a great deal to Nan—­the difference between a pert, indifferent maid and a civil and experienced one; flowers in your rooms; a taxi instead of a scramble for a motor-’bus.  Just small things in such a big thing as life, but they make an enormous difference.”