The Moon out of Reach | Page 6

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 cong��--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 in Penelope's honest brown eyes. "Mistaken? . . . Nan, what do you mean?"
"It's quite simple." Nan's laughter ceased suddenly. "Maryon Rooke has not asked me to marry him. I've not refused him. He--he didn't give me the opportunity." Her voice shook a little. "He's just been in to say good-bye," she went on, after a pause. "He's going abroad."
"Listen to me, Nan." Penelope spoke very quietly. "There's a mistake somewhere. I'm absolutely sure Maryon cares for you--and cares pretty badly, too."
"Oh, yes, he cares. But"--in a studiously light voice that hid the quivering pain at her heart--"a rising artist has to consider his art. He can't hamper himself by marriage with an impecunious musician who isn't able to pull wires and help him on. 'He travels the fastest who travels alone.' You know it. And Maryon Rooke knows it. I suppose it's true."
She got up from her chair and came and stood beside Penelope.
"We won't talk of this again, Penny. What one wants is a 'far Moon' and I'd forgotten the width of the world which always seems to lie between. My 'shining ship' has foundered. That's all."
CHAPTER II
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Penelope tapped sharply at Nan's bedroom door.
"Nan, are you ready? Your