Penelope’s level brows contracted into a frown and she shook her head dissentingly.

“It’s true—­every word of it,” asserted Nan.

The other dropped her hands from Nan’s shoulders and turned away.

“You’ll break everyone’s heart before you’ve finished,” she said.  Adding in a lighter tone:  “I’m going out now.  If Maryon Rooke comes, don’t begin by breaking his for him.”

The door closed behind her and Nan, left alone, strolled restlessly over to the window and stood looking out.

“Break his!” she whispered under her breath.  “Dear old Penny!  She doesn’t know the probabilities in this particular game of chance.”

The slanting afternoon sunlight revealed once more that sudden touch of gravity—­almost of fear—­in her face.  It was rather a charming face, delicately angled, with cheeks that hollowed slightly beneath the cheek-bones and a chin which would have been pointed had not old Dame Nature changed her mind at the last moment and elected to put a provoking little cleft there.  Nor could even the merciless light of a wintry sun find a flaw in her skin.  It was one of those rare, creamy skins, with a golden undertone and the feature of a flower petal, sometimes found in conjunction with dark hair.  The faint colour in her cheeks was of that same warm rose which the sun kisses into glowing life on the velvet skin of an apricot.

The colour deepened suddenly in her face as the sound of an electric bell trilled through the flat.  Dropping her arms to her sides, she stood motionless, like a bird poised for flight.  Then, with a little impatient shrug of her shoulders, she made her way slowly, almost unwillingly, across the hall and threw open the door.

“You, Maryon?” she said a trifle breathlessly.  Then, as he entered:  “I—­I hardly expected you.”

He took both her hands in his and kissed them.

“It’s several years since I expected anything,” he answered.  “Now—­I only hope.”

Nan smiled.

“Come in, pessimist, and don’t begin by being epigrammatic on the very doorstep.  Tea?  Or coffee?  I’m afraid the flat doesn’t run to whisky-and-soda.”

“Coffee, please—­and your conversation—­will suffice.  ’A Loaf of Bread . . . and Thou beside me singing in the Wilderness’ . . .”

“You’d much prefer a whisky-and-soda and a grilled steak to the loaf and—­the et ceteras,” observed Nan cynically.  “There’s a very wide gulf between what a man says and what he thinks.”

“There’s a much wider one between what a man wants and what he gets,” he returned grimly.

“You’ll soon have all you want,” she answered.  “You’re well on the way to fame already.”

“Do you know,” he remarked irrelevantly, “your eyes are exactly like blue violets.  I’d like to paint you, Nan.”

“Perhaps I’ll sit for you some day,” she replied, handing him his coffee.  “That is, if you’re very good.”