There was a silence, Penelope feeling that Lord St. John had crystallised in words, thoughts and theories that she sensed as being the foundation of her own opinions, hitherto unrecognised and nebulous.
"And I don't really think men are at all suited to have the care and guardianship of women."
"Unfortunately they're all that Providence has seen fit to provide," replied Penelope, with her usual bluntly philosophical acceptance of facts.
"And yet--we men don't understand women. We're constantly hurting them with our clumsy misconceptions--with our failure to respond to their complexities."
"Ah, my dear, I'm an old man now and perhaps I understand. But there was a time when I understood no better than the average youngster who gaily asks some nice woman to trust her future in his hands--without a second thought as to whether he's fit for such a trust. And that was just the time when a little understanding would have given happiness to the woman I loved best on earth."
He spoke rather wearily, but contrived a smile as Nan entered, carrying a cup of coffee in her hand.
"My compliments, Nan. Your coffee equals that of any Frenchwoman."
"A reversion to type. Don't forget that Angèle de Varincourt is always at the back of me."
St. John laughed and drank his coffee appreciatively, and after a little further desultory conversation took his departure, leaving the two girls alone together.
"Yes," agreed Penelope. "He is. And he absolutely spoils you."
"I really think he does--a bit. Imagine it, Penny, after our strenuous economies! Six hundred a year in addition to our hard-earned pence! Within limits it really does mean pretty frocks, and theatres, and taxis when we want them."
Penelope smiled at her riotous satisfaction. Nan lived tremendously in the present--her capacity for enjoyment and for suffering was so intense that every little pleasure magnified itself and each small fret and jar became a minor tragedy.
But Penelope was acutely conscious that beneath all the surface tears and laughter there lay a hurt which had not healed, the ultimate effect and consequence of which she was afraid to contemplate.
It was the evening of Kitty's little dinner--a cosy gathering of sympathetic souls, the majority of whom were more or less intimately known to each other.