"Oh, I'm sorry--I'm sorry! . . . I--I never thought of that when I asked you to be a pal to her." Her voice shook uncontrollably.
He smiled again--the game half-weary, half-tenderly amused smile which was so characteristic.
"You needn't be sorry," he said, speaking with great gentleness. "I shall never be sorry that I love her. It's only that just now she doesn't need me. That's why I won't come down to Mallow."
"No. The man she needs has come back. I can't tell you _how_ I know--you'll have to trust me over that--but I do know that Maryon Rooke has come back to her and that he is the man who means everything to her."
Kitty's brows drew together as she pondered the question whether Peter were right or wrong in his opinion.
"I don't think you're right," she said at last in tones of conviction. "I don't believe she 'needs' him at all. I dare-say he still fascinates her. He has"--she hesitated--"a curious sort of fascination for some women. And the sooner Nan is cured of it the better."
"I've done--all that I could," he answered briefly.
"Don't I know that?" Kitty slipped her arm into his. "You've been splendid! That's just why I want you to come down to us in Cornwall."
"Maryon?" She paused, then went on with a chilly little note of haughtiness in her voice. "I certainly don't propose to invite Maryon Rooke to Mallow."
"Still, you can't prevent him from taking a summer holiday at St. Wennys."
St. Wennys was a small fishing village on the Cornish coast, barely a mile away from Mallow Court.
"He won't come--I'm sure!" asserted Kitty. "Sir Robert Burnham lives quite near there--he's Maryon's godfather--and they hate each other like poison."
"Oh, old Sir Robert was Maryon's guardian till he came of age, and then, when Maryon decided to go in for painting, he presented him with the small patrimony to which he was entitled and declined to have anything further to do with him--either financially or otherwise. Simply chucked him. Maryon went through some very bad times, I believe, in his early days," continued Kitty, striving to be just. "That's the one thing I respect him for. He stuck to it and won through to where he stands now."
"It shows he's got some grit, anyway," agreed Peter. "And do you think"--smiling--"that that's the type of man who's going to give in over winning the woman he wants? . . . Should I, if things were different--if I were free?"