The Moon out of Reach

by Margaret Pedler

  Produced by Al Haines

  THE MOON OUT OF REACH

  BY

  MARGARET PEDLER

  AUTHOR OF

  THE HOUSE OF DREAMS-COME-TRUE, THE SPLENDID FOLLY, THE LAMP OF FATE,ETC.

  NEW YORK

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS

  Made in the United States of America

  COPYRIGHT, 1921,

  MARGARET PEDLER

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I THE SHINING SHIP II THE GOOD SAMARITAN III A QUESTION OF EXTERNALS IV THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD V "PREUX CHEVALIER" VI A FORGOTTEN FAN VII THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR VIII THE MIDDLE OF THE STAIRCASE IX A SKIRMISH WITH DEATH X INDECISION XI GOING WITH THE TIDE XII THE DOUBLE BARRIER XIII BY THE LOVERS' BRIDGE XIV RELATIONS-IN-LAW XV KING ARTHUR'S CASTLE XVI SACRED TROTH XVII "THE KEYS OF HEAVEN" XVIII "TILL DEATH US DO PART" XIX THE PRICE XX THE CAKE DOOR XXI LADY GERTRUDE'S POINT OF VIEW XXII THE OFFERING OF FIRST-FRUITS XXIII A QUESTION OF HONOUR XXIV FLIGHT! XXV AN UNEXPECTED MEETING XXVI "THE WIDTH OF A WORLD BETWEEN" XXVII THE DARK ANGEL XXVIII GOOD-BYE! XXIX ON THIN ICE XXX SEEKING TO FORGET XXXI TOWARDS UNKNOWN WAYS XXXII THE GREEN CAR XXXIII KEEPING FAITH XXXIV THE WHITE FLAME XXXV THE GATES OF FATE XXXVI ROGER'S REFUSAL XXXVII THE GREAT HEALER

  EMPTY HANDS

  Away in the sky, high over our heads, With the width of a world between, The far Moon sails like a shining ship Which the Dreamer's eyes have seen.

  And empty hands are outstretched, in vain, While aching eyes beseech, And hearts may break that cry for the Moon, The silver Moon out of reach!

  But sometimes God on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love.

  MARGARET PEDLER.

  NOTE:--Musical setting by Adrian Butt. Published by Edward Schuberth &Co., 11 East 22nd Street, New York.

  THE MOON OUT OF REACH

  CHAPTER I

  THE SHINING SHIP

  She was kneeling on the hearthrug, grasping the poker firmly in one hand.Now and again she gave the fire a truculent prod with it as though toemphasise her remarks.

  "'Ask and ye shall receive'! . . . '_Tout vient a point a celui qui saitattendre_'! Where on earth is there any foundation for such optimism,I'd like to know?"

  A sleek brown head bent determinedly above some sewing lifted itself, anda pair of amused eyes rested on the speaker.

  "Really, Nan, you mustn't confound French proverbs with quotations fromthe Scriptures. They're not at all the same thing."

  "Those two run on parallel lines, anyway. When I was a kiddie I used topray--I've prayed for hours, and it wasn't through any lack of faith thatmy prayers weren't answered. On the contrary, I was enormouslyastonished to find how entirely the Almighty had overlooked my requestfor a white pony like the one at the circus."

  "Well, then, my dear, try to solace yourself with the fact that'everything comes at last to him who knows how to wait.'"

  "But it doesn't!"

  Penelope Craig reflected a moment.

  "Do you--know--how to wait?" she demanded, with a significant littleaccent on the word "know."

  "I've waited in vain. No white pony has ever come, and if it trotted innow--why, I don't want one any longer. I tell you, Penny"--tapping anemphatic forefinger on the other's knee--"you never get your wishes untilyou've out-grown them."

  "You've reached the mature age of three-and-twenty"--drily. "It's atrifle early to be so definite."

  "Not a bit! I want my wishes _now_, while I'm young and can enjoythem--lots of money, and amusement, and happiness! They'll be no good tome when I'm seventy or so!"

  "Even at seventy," remarked Penelope sagely, "wealth is better thanpoverty--much. And I can imagine amusement and happiness being quitedesirable even at three score years and ten."

  Nan Davenant grimaced.

  "Philosophers," she observed, "are a highly irritating species."

  "But what do you want, my dear? You're always kicking against the pricks.What do you really _want_?"

  The coals slipped with a grumble in the grate and a blue flame shot upthe chimney. Nan stretched out her hand for the matches and lit acigarette. Then she blew a cloud of speculative smoke into the air.

  "I don't know," she said slowly. Adding whimsically: "I believe that'sthe root of the trouble."

  Penelope regarded her critically.

  "I'll tell you what's the matter," she returned. "During the war youlived on excitement--"

  "I worked jolly hard," interpolated Nan indignantly.

  The other's eyes softened.

  "I know you worked," she said quickly. "Like a brick. But all the sameyou did live on excitement--narrow shaves of death during air-raids,dances galore, and beautiful boys in khaki, home on leave in convenientrotation, to take you anywhere and everywhere. You felt you were workingfor them and they knew they were fighting for you, and the whole fouryears was just one pulsing, throbbing rush. Oh, I know! You were caughtup into it just the same as the rest of the world, and now that it's overand normal existence is feebly struggling up to the surface again, you'reall to pieces, hugely dissatisfied, like everyone else."

  "At least I'm in the fashion, then!"

  Penelope smiled briefly.

  "Small credit to you if you are," she retorted. "People are simplyshirking work nowadays. And you're as bad as anyone. You've not triedto pick up the threads again--you're just idling round."

  "It's catching, I expect," temporised Nan beguilingly.

  But the lines on Penelope's face refused to relax.

  "It's because it's easier to play than to work," she replied with grimcandour.

  "Don't scold, Penny." Nan brought the influence of a pair of appealingblue eyes to bear on the matter. "I really mean to begin work--soon."

  "When?" demanded the other searchingly.

  Nan's charming mouth, with its short, curved upper lip, widened into asmile of friendly mockery.

  "You don't expect me to supply you with the exact day and hour, do you?Don't be so fearfully precise, Penny! I can't run myself on railwaytime-table lines. You need never hope for it."

  "I don't"--shortly. Adding, with a twinkle: "Even I'm not quite such anoptimist as that!"

  As she spoke, Penelope laid down her sewing and stretched cramped armsabove her head.

  "At this point," she observed, "the House adjourned for tea. Nan, it'syour week for domesticity. Go and make tea."

  Nan scrambled up from the hearthrug obediently and disappeared into thekitchen regions, while Penelope, curling herself up on a cushion in frontof the fire, sat musing.

  For nearly six years now she and Nan had shared the flat they were livingin. When they had first joined forces, Nan had been at the beginning ofher career as a pianist and was still studying, while Penelope, hersenior by five years, had already been before the public as a singer forsome considerable time. With the outbreak of the war, they had boththrown themselves heartily into war work of various kinds, reserving onlya certain portion of their time for professional purposes. The doublework had proved a considerable strain on each of them, and now that thewar was past it seemed as though Nan, at least, were incapable of gettinga fresh grip on things.

  Luckily--or, from some points of view, unluckily--she was the recipientof an allowance of three hundred a year from a wealthy and benevolentuncle. Without this, the two girls might have found it difficult toweather the profitless intervals which punctuated their professionalengagements. But with this addition to their inco
me they rubbed alongpretty well, and contrived to find a fair amount of amusement in lifethrough the medium of their many friends in London.

  Penelope, the elder of the two by five years, was the daughter of acountry rector, long since dead. She had known the significance of thewords "small means" all her life, and managed the financial affairs ofthe little menage in Edenhall Mansions with creditable success. WhereasNan Davenant, flung at her parents' death from the shelter of a homewhere wealth and reckless expenditure had prevailed, knew less thannothing of the elaborate art of cutting one's coat according to thecloth. Nor could she ever be brought to understand that there are onlytwenty shillings in a pound--and that at the present moment even twentyshillings were worth considerably less than they appeared to be.

  There are certain people in the world who seem cast for the part ofonlooker. Of these Penelope was one. Evenly her life had slipped alongwith its measure of work and play, its quiet family loves and losses,entirely devoid of the alarums and excursions of which Fate shapes thelives of some. Hence she had developed the talent of the looker-on.

  Naturally of an observant turn of mind, she had learned to penetrate theveil that hangs behind the actions of humanity, into the secret,temperamental places whence those actions emanate, and had achieved asomewhat rare comprehension and tolerance of her fellows.

  From her father, who had been for thirty years the arbiter of affairsboth great and small in a country parish and had yet succeeded inretaining the undivided affection of his flock, she had inherited a spiceof humorous philosophy, and this, combined with a very practical sense ofjustice, enabled her to accept human nature as she found it--withoutcontempt, without censoriousness, and sometimes with a breathlessadmiration for its unexpectedly heroic qualities.

  She it was who alone had some slight understanding of Nan Davenant'scomplexities--complexities of temperament which both baffled theunfortunate possessor of them and hopelessly misled the world at large.

  The Davenant history showed a line of men and women gifted beyond theaverage, the artistic bias paramount, and the interpolation of aFrenchwoman four generations ago, in the person of Nan'sgreat-grandmother, had only added to the temperamental burden of therace. She had been a strange, brilliant creature, with about her thatmysterious touch of genius which by its destined suffering buysforgiveness for its destined sins.

  And in Nan the soul of her French ancestress lived anew. The charm ofthe frail and fair Angele de Varincourt--baffling, elusive, butirresistible--was hers, and the soul of the artist, with its restlessimagination, its craving for the beautiful, its sensitive response to allemotion--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 theriot of her visions for Nan's future. Nevertheless, she was sometimesconscious of an undercurrent of foreboding. Something was lacking. Hadthe gods, giving so much, withheld the two best gifts of all--Success andHappiness?

  While Penelope mused in the firelight, the clatter of china issuing fromthe kitchen premises indicated unusual domestic activity on Nan's part,and finally culminated in her entry into the sitting-room, bearing aladen tea-tray.

  "Hot scones!" she announced joyfully. "I've made a burnt offering ofmyself, toasting them."

  Penelope smiled.

  "What an infant you are, Nan," she returned. "I sometimes wonder ifyou'll ever grow up?"

  "I hope not"--with great promptitude. "I detest extremely grown-uppeople. But what are you brooding over so darkly? Cease thosephilosophical reflections in which you've been indulging--it's a positivevice 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 andcarefully avoiding Penelope's eyes. "He said he might look in some timethis afternoon."

  Penelope held the teapot arrested in mid-air.

  "How condescending of him!" she commented drily. "If he comes--then exitPenelope."

  "You're an ideal chaperon, Penny," murmured Nan with approval.

  "Chaperons are superfluous women nowadays. And you and Maryon are sonearly engaged that you wouldn't require one even if they weren't out ofdate."

  "Are we?" A queer look of uncertainty showed in Nan's eyes. One mightalmost have said she was afraid.

  "Aren't you?" Penelope's counter-question flashed back swiftly. "Ithought 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 tobe giving a singing-lesson at half-past five, that's all." After a pauseshe added tentatively: "Nan, why don't you take some pupils? Itmeans--hard cash."

  "And endless patience!" commented Nan, "No, don't ask me that, Penny, asyou love me! I couldn't watch their silly fingers lumbering over thepiano."

  "Well, why don't you take more concert work? You could get it if youchose! You're simply throwing away your chances! How long is it sinceyou composed anything, I'd like to know?"

  "Precisely five minutes--just now when I was in the kitchen. Listen, andI'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 theappropriateness of the words struck me," she added with a maliciouslittle grin.

  She seated, herself at the piano and her slim, nervous hands wanderedsoundlessly a moment above the keys. Then a wailing minor melody grewbeneath them--unsatisfied, asking, with now and then an ecstasy of joyouschords that only died again into the querying despair of the originaltheme. 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 giftof the gods--and you do nothing with it!"

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

  "I can't," she said.

  "Why not?" Penelope's voice was urgent. "Why don't you work up thatlast composition, for instance, and get it published? Surely"--givingher 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 perseveranceto achieve.'"

  Penelope's level brows contracted into a frown and she shook her headdissentingly.

  "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. Addingin a lighter tone: "I'm going out now. If Maryon Rooke comes, don'tbegin by breaking his for him."

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

  "Break his!" she whispered under her breath. "Dear old Penny! Shedoesn't know the probabilities in this particular game of chance."

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

  The colour deepened suddenly in her face as the sound of an electric belltrilled through the flat. Dropping her arms to her sides, she stoodmotionless, like a bird poised for flight. Then, with a little impatientshrug 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--Ionly hope."

  Nan smiled.

  "Come in, pessimist, and don't begin by being epigrammatic on the verydoorstep. Tea? Or coffee? I'm afraid the flat doesn't run towhisky-and-soda."

  "Coffee, please--and your conversation--will suffice. 'A Loaf ofBread . . . and Thou beside me singing in the Wilderness' . . ."

  "You'd much prefer a whisky-and-soda and a grilled steak to the loafand--the et ceteras," observed Nan cynically. "There's a very wide gulfbetween what a man says and what he thinks."

  "There's a much wider one between what a man wants and what he gets," hereturned grimly.

  "You'll soon have all you want," she answered. "You're well on the wayto fame already."

  "Do you know," he remarked irrelevantly, "your eyes are exactly like blueviolets. 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."

  Maryon Rooke was a man the merit of whose work was just beginning to benoticed in the art world. For years he had laboured unacknowledged andwith increasing bitterness--for he knew his own worth. But now, though,still only in his early thirties, his reputation, particularly as apainter of women's portraits, had begun to be noised abroad. His feetwere on the lower rungs of the ladder, and it was generally prophesiedthat he would ultimately reach the top. His gifts were undeniable, andthere was a certain ruthlessness in the line of the lips above the smallVan Dyck beard he wore which suggested that he would permit little tostand in the way of his attaining his goal--be it what it might.

  "You'd make a delightful picture, Sun-kissed," he said, narrowing hiseyes and using one of his most frequent names for her. "With your blueviolet eyes and that rose-petal skin of yours."

  Nan smiled involuntarily.

  "Don't be so flowery, Maryon. Really, you and Penelope are very goodantidotes to each other! She's just been giving me a lecture on theerror of my ways. She doesn't waste any breath over my appearance, blessher!"

  "What's the crime?"

  "Lack of application, waste of opportunities, and general idleness."

  "It's all true." Rooke leaned forward, his eyes lit by momentaryenthusiasm. They were curious eyes--hazel brown, with a misleadingsoftness in them that appealed to every woman he met. "It's all true,"he repeated. "You could do big things, Nan. And you do nothing."

  Nan laughed, half-pleased, half-vexed.

  "I think you overrate my capabilities."

  "I don't. There are very few pianists who have your technique, and fewerstill, your soul and power of interpretation."

  "Oh, yes, there are. Heaps. And they've got what I lack."

  "And that is?"

  "The power to hold their audience."

  "You lack that? You who can hold a man--"

  She broke in excitedly.

  "Yes, I can hold one man--or woman. I can play to a few people and holdthem. I know that. But--I can't hold a crowd."

  Rooke regarded her thoughtfully. Perhaps it was true that in spite ofher charm, of the compelling fascination which made her sounforgettable--did he not know how unforgettable!--she yet lacked thetremendous force of magnetic personality which penetrates through a wholeconcourse of people, temperamentally differing as the poles, and carriesthem away on one great tidal wave of enthusiasm and applause.

  "It may be true," he said, at last, reluctantly. "I don't think youpossess great animal magnetism! Yours is a more elusive, more--how shallI put it?--an attraction more spirituelle. . . . To those it touches,worse luck, a more enduring one."

  "More enduring?"

  "Far more. Animal magnetism is a thing of bodily presence. Once one isaway from it--apart--one is free. Until the next meeting! But _your_victims aren't even free from you when you're not there."

  "It sounds a trifle boring. Like a visitor who never knows when it'stime to go."

  Rooke smiled.

  "You're trying to switch me off the main theme, which is your work."

  She sprang up.

  "Don't bully me any more," she said quickly, "and I'll play you one of myrecent compositions."

  She sauntered across to the piano and began to play a little rippingmelody, full of sunshine and laughter, and though a sob ran through it,it was smothered by the overlying gaiety. Rooke crossed to her side andquietly lifted her hands from the keys.

  "Charming," he said. "But it doesn't ring true. That was meant for asad song. As it stands, it's merely flippant--insincere. Andinsincerity is the knell of art."

  Nan skimmed the surface defiantly.

  "What a disagreeable criticism! You might have given me someencouragement instead of crushing my poor little attempt at compositionlike that!"

  Rooke looked at her gravely. With him, sincerity in art was a fetish; inlife, a superfluity. But for the moment he was genuinely moved. Theposeur's mask which he habitually wore slipped aside and the real manpeeped out.

  "Yours ought to be more than attempts," he said quietly. "It's in you todo something really big. And you must do it. If not, you'll go topieces. You don't understand yourself."

  "And do you profess to?"

  "A little." He smiled down at her. "The gods have given you the goldengift--the creative faculty. And there's a price to pay if you don't usethe gift."

  Nan's "blue violet" eyes held a startled look.

  "You've got something which isn't given to everyone. To precious few, infact! And if you don't use it, it will poison everything. We artists_may not_ rust. If we do, the soul corrodes."

  The sincerity of his tone was unmistakable. Art was the only altar atwhich Rooke worshipped, it was probably the only altar at which he everwould worship consistently. Nan suddenly yielded to the driving force atthe back of his speech.

  "Listen to this, then," she said. "It's a setting to some words I cameacross the other day."

  She handed him a slip of paper on which the words were written and hiseyes ran swiftly down the verses of the brief lyric:

  EMPTY HANDS

  Away in the sky, high over our heads, With the width of a world between, The far Moon sails like a shining ship Which the Dreamer's eyes have seen.

  And empty hands are out-stretched in vain, While aching eyes beseech, And hearts may break that cry for the Moon, The silver Moon out of reach!

  But sometimes God on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love.

  Nan played softly, humming the melody in the wistful little pipe of avoice which was all that Mature had endowed her with. But it had anappealing quality--the heart-touching quality of the mezzo-soprano--whilethrough the music ran the same unsatisfied cry as in her setting of theold Tentmaker's passionate words--a terrible demand for those things thatlife sometimes withholds.

  As she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.

  "It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He seesthe good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wantsthe most--he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life--the great godCircumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mightybadly 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 asthough a door had been shut in her face. This man had a rare faculty forimplying 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 noteven grasp at the star."

  He had adapted the verses very cleverly to suit his purpose. With asudden flash of intuition Nan understood him, and the fear which hadknocked at her heart, when Penelope had assumed that there was a definiteunderstanding between herself and Rooke, knocked again. Poeticallywrapped up, he was in reality handing her out her conge--franklyadmitting 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 pagesof 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 forwardon to the keys of the piano.

  With an impetuous movement he leaned towards her and caught her hand inhis.

  "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 andthen 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--aline between, himself and her.

  "There," he said briefly.

  She caught her breath. But before she could make any answer he wasspeaking again.

  "You've been very good to me, Nan--pushed the gate of Paradise at leastajar. And if it closes now, I've no earthly right to grumble. . . .After all, I'm only one amongst your many friends." He reclaimed herhands 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--verygently 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 almostimmediately by the clang of the iron grille as the lift-boy dragged itacross. It seemed to her as though a curious note of finality sounded inthe metallic clamour of the grille--a grim resemblance to the clank ofkeys and shooting of bolts which cuts the outer world from the prisonerin his cell.

  With a little strangled cry she sank into a chair, clasping her handstightly together. She sat there, very still and quiet, staring blanklyinto space. . . .

  And so, an hour later, Penelope found her. She was startled by thecurious, 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 shedivested 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 setexpression went out of it.

  "Yes," she said, smiling a little. "It is 'that man.'"

  "Well, what's happened? Surely"--with an accent of reproof--"surelyyou'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 turnhim 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 inhim, then perhaps I've not been quite such an incredible fool as Ithought."

  "Mistaken?" There was a look of consternation in Penelope's honest browneyes. "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 giveme the opportunity." Her voice shook a little. "He's just been in tosay good-bye," she went on, after a pause. "He's going abroad."

  "Listen to me, Nan." Penelope spoke very quietly. "There's a mistakesomewhere. I'm absolutely sure Maryon cares for you--and cares prettybadly, too."

  "Oh, yes, he cares. But"--in a studiously light voice that hid thequivering pain at her heart--"a rising artist has to consider his art.He can't hamper himself by marriage with an impecunious musician whoisn't able to pull wires and help him on. 'He travels the fastest whotravels alone.' You know it. And Maryon Rooke knows it. I suppose it'strue."

  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' andI'd forgotten the width of the world which always seems to lie between.My 'shining ship' has foundered. That's all."