His foreign twist of phrase was unusually pronounced, as always in moments of strong feeling.
"But that's just it!" she declared emphatically. "You're _not_ trusting me--you're keeping me outside the door."
"Believe me, there's nothing you'd wish to see--the other side."
"Which means that in any case it's no use knocking at a door that won't be opened," said Kitty, apparently yielding the point. "So we'll switch off that subject and get on to the next. We go down to Mallow Court at the end of this week. I can't stand town in July. What date are you coming to us?"
Peter was silent a moment, his eyes bent on the ground. Then he raised his head suddenly as though he had just come to a decision.
"I'm afraid I shan't be able to come down," he said quietly.
"But you promised us!" objected Kitty. "Peter, you can't go back on a promise!"
Kitty, discerning in his refusal another facet of that "something wrong" she had suspected, clasped her hands round her knees and faced him with deliberation.
"Look here, Peter, it isn't you to break a promise without some real good reason. You say you can't come down to us at Mallow. Why not?"
"I want an answer, Peter. We've been pals for some time now, and"--with vigour--"I'm not going to be kept out of whatever it is that's hurting you. So tell me."
He made no answer, and she slipped down from the Chesterfield and came to his side.
"Is it anything to do with Nan?" she asked gently, her thoughts going back to the talk she had had with Penelope before the bridge party began.
"It doesn't seem much use trying to keep you in the dark, does it?"
"I must know," she urged. Adding with feminine guile:
"Of course I should be frightfully hurt if I thought you weren't coming just because you didn't want to. But still I'd rather know--even if that were the reason."
"Not want to?" he broke out, his control suddenly snapping. "I'd give my soul to come!"
The bitterness in his voice--in the lazy, drawling tones she knew so well--let in a flood of light upon the darkness in which she had been groping.
"Peter--oh, Peter!" she cried tremulously. "You're not--you don't mean that you care for Nan--seriously?"
"I don't think many men could be with her much without caring," he answered simply.