Penelope held the teapot arrested in mid-air.

“How condescending of him!” she commented drily.  “If he comes—­then exit Penelope.”

“You’re an ideal chaperon, Penny,” murmured Nan with approval.

“Chaperons are superfluous women nowadays.  And you and Maryon are so nearly engaged that you wouldn’t require one even if they weren’t out of date.”

“Are we?” A queer look of uncertainty showed in Nan’s eyes.  One might almost have said she was afraid.

“Aren’t you?” Penelope’s counter-question flashed back swiftly.  “I thought there was a perfectly definite understanding between you?”

“So you trot tactfully away when he comes?  Nice of you, Penny.”

“It’s not in the least ‘nice’ of me,” retorted the other.  “I happen to be giving a singing-lesson at half-past five, that’s all.”  After a pause she added tentatively:  “Nan, why don’t you take some pupils?  It means—­hard cash.”

“And endless patience!” commented Nan, “No, don’t ask me that, Penny, as you love me!  I couldn’t watch their silly fingers lumbering over the piano.”

“Well, why don’t you take more concert work?  You could get it if you chose!  You’re simply throwing away your chances!  How long is it since you composed anything, I’d like to know?”

“Precisely five minutes—­just now when I was in the kitchen.  Listen, and I’ll play it to you.  It’s a setting to those words of old Omar: 

  ’Ah, Love! could you and I with Fate conspire
  To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
    Would not we shatter it to bits—­and then
  Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!’

I was burning my fingers in the performance of duty and the appropriateness of the words struck me,” she added with a malicious little grin.

She seated, herself at the piano and her slim, nervous hands wandered soundlessly a moment above the keys.  Then a wailing minor melody grew beneath them—­unsatisfied, asking, with now and then an ecstasy of joyous chords that only died again into the querying despair of the original theme.  She broke off abruptly, humming the words beneath her breath.

Penelope crossed the room and, laying her hands on the girl’s shoulders, twisted her round so that she faced her.

“Nan, it’s sheer madness!  You’ve got this wonderful talent—­a real gift of the gods—­and you do nothing with it!”

Nan laughed uncertainly and bent her bead so that all Penelope could see was a cloud of dusky hair.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?” Penelope’s voice was urgent.  “Why don’t you work up that last composition, for instance, and get it published?  Surely”—­giving her a little wrathful shake—­“surely you’ve some ambition?”

“Do you remember what that funny old Scotch clairvoyant said to me? . . .  ’You have ambition—­great ambition—­but not the stability or perseverance to achieve.’”