The Moon out of Reach | Page 3

veil that hangs behind the actions of humanity, into the secret,
temperamental places whence those actions emanate, and had achieved
a somewhat rare comprehension and tolerance of her fellows.
From her father, who had been for thirty years the arbiter of affairs both
great and small in a country parish and had yet succeeded in retaining
the undivided affection of his flock, she had inherited a spice of
humorous philosophy, and this, combined with a very practical sense of
justice, enabled her to accept human nature as she found it--without
contempt, without censoriousness, and sometimes with a breathless
admiration for its unexpectedly heroic qualities.
She it was who alone had some slight understanding of Nan Davenant's
complexities--complexities of temperament which both baffled the
unfortunate possessor of them and hopelessly misled the world at large.
The Davenant history showed a line of men and women gifted beyond
the average, the artistic bias paramount, and the interpolation of a
Frenchwoman four generations ago, in the person of Nan's
great-grandmother, had only added to the temperamental burden of the
race. She had been a strange, brilliant creature, with about her that
mysterious touch of genius which by its destined suffering buys
forgiveness for its destined sins.
And in Nan the soul of her French ancestress lived anew. The charm of
the frail and fair Angèle de Varincourt--baffling, elusive, but
irresistible--was hers, and the soul of the artist, with its restless
imagination, its craving for the beautiful, its sensitive response to all
emotion--this, too, was her inheritance.
To Penelope, Nan's ultimate unfolding was a matter of absorbing
interest. Her own small triumphs as a singer paled into insignificance

beside the riot of her visions for Nan's future. Nevertheless, she was
sometimes conscious of an undercurrent of foreboding. Something was
lacking. Had the gods, giving so much, withheld the two best gifts of
all--Success and Happiness?
While Penelope mused in the firelight, the clatter of china issuing from
the kitchen premises indicated unusual domestic activity on Nan's part,
and finally culminated in her entry into the sitting-room, bearing a
laden tea-tray.
"Hot scones!" she announced joyfully. "I've made a burnt offering of
myself, toasting them."
Penelope smiled.
"What an infant you are, Nan," she returned. "I sometimes wonder if
you'll ever grow up?"
"I hope not"--with great promptitude. "I detest extremely grown-up
people. But what are you brooding over so darkly? Cease those
philosophical reflections in which you've been indulging--it's a positive
vice with you, Penny--and give me some tea."
Penelope laughed and began to pour out tea.
"I half thought Maryon Rooke might be here by now," remarked Nan,
selecting a scone from the golden-brown pyramid on the plate and
carefully avoiding Penelope's eyes. "He said he might look in some
time this afternoon."
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