The Moon out of Reach | Page 6

she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.
"It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees
the good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wants
the most--he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life--the great god
Circumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mighty
badly sometimes! And that's why I can't--why I mustn't--"
He broke off abruptly, checking what he had intended to say. Nan felt
as though a door had been shut in her face. This man had a rare faculty
for implying everything and saying nothing.
"I don't understand," she said rather low.
"An artist isn't a free agent--not free to take the things life offers," he
answered steadily. "He's seen 'the far Moon' with the Dreamer's eyes,
and that's probably all he'll ever see of it. His 'empty hands' may not
even grasp at the star."
He had adapted the verses very cleverly to suit his purpose. With a
sudden flash of intuition Nan understood him, and the fear which had
knocked at her heart, when Penelope had assumed that there was a
definite understanding between herself and Rooke, knocked again.
Poetically wrapped up, he was in reality handing her out her
congé--frankly admitting that art came first and love a poor second.
He twisted his shoulders irritably.
"Last talks are always odious!" he flung out abruptly.
"Last?" she queried. Her fingers were trifling nervously with the pages
of an album of songs that rested against the music-desk.

He did not look at her.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I'm going away. I leave for Paris to-morrow."
There was a crash of jangled notes as the album suddenly pitched
forward on to the keys of the piano.
With an impetuous movement he leaned towards her and caught her
hand in his.
"Nan!" he said hoarsely, "Nan! Do you care?"
But the next moment he had released her.
"I'm a fool!" he said. "What's the use of drawing a boundary line and
then overstepping it?"
"And where"--Nan's voice was very low--"where do you draw the
line?"
He stood motionless a moment. Then he gestured a line with his
hand--a line between, himself and her.
"There," he said briefly.
She caught her breath. But before she could make any answer he was
speaking again.
"You've been very good to me, Nan--pushed the gate of Paradise at
least ajar. And if it closes now, I've no earthly right to grumble. . . .
After all, I'm only one amongst your many friends." He reclaimed her
hands and drew them against his breast. "Good-bye, beloved," he said.
His voice sounded rough and uneven.
Instinctively Nan clung to him. He released himself very gently--very
gently but inexorably.
"So it's farewell, Sun-kissed."

Mechanically she shook hands and her lips murmured some vague
response. She heard the door of the flat close behind him, followed
almost immediately by the clang of the iron grille as the lift-boy
dragged it across. It seemed to her as though a curious note of finality
sounded in the metallic clamour of the grille--a grim resemblance to the
clank of keys and shooting of bolts which cuts the outer world from the
prisoner in his cell.
With a little strangled cry she sank into a chair, clasping her hands
tightly together. She sat there, very still and quiet, staring blankly into
space. . . .
And so, an hour later, Penelope found her. She was startled by the
curious, dazed look in her eyes.
"Nan!" she cried sharply. "Nan! What's the matter?"
Nan turned her head fretfully from one side to the other.
"Nothing," she answered dully. "Nothing whatever."
But Penelope saw the look of strain in her face. Very deliberately she
divested herself of her hat and coat and sat down.
"Tell me about it," she said practically. "Is it--is it that man?"
A gleam of humour shot across Nan's face, and the painfully set
expression went out of it.
"Yes," she said, smiling a little. "It is 'that man.'"
"Well, what's happened? Surely"--with an accent of reproof--"surely
you've not refused him?"
Nan still regarded her with a faintly humorous smile.
"Do you think I ought not--to have refused him?" she queried.
Penelope answered with decision.

"Certainly I do. You could see--anyone could see--that he cared badly,
and you ought to have choked him off months ago if you only meant to
turn him down at the finish. It wasn't playing the game."
Nan began to laugh helplessly.
"Penny, you're too funny for words--if you only knew it. But still,
you're beginning to restore my self-respect. If you were mistaken in
him, then perhaps I've not been quite such an incredible fool as I
thought."
"Mistaken?" There was a look of consternation