To-day the inevitable reaction had succeeded and only the bleak, bitter facts remained. Nan faced them squarely, though it called for all the pluck of which she was possessed. Peter had gone, and throughout the years that stretched ahead she saw herself travelling through life step by step with Roger, living the same dull existence year in, year out, till at last, when they were both too old for anything to matter very much--too supine for romance to send the quick blood racing through their veins, too dull of sight to perceive the glamour and glory of the world--merciful death would step in and take one or other of them away. She shivered a little with youth's instinctive dread of the time when age shall quieten the bounding pulses, slowly but surely taking the savour out of things. She wanted to live first, to gather up the joy of life with both hands. . . . Her thoughts were suddenly scattered by the sound of the opening door and the sight of Mrs. Seymour's inquiring face peeping round it. "Awake?" queried Kitty. With a determined mental effort Nan pulled herself together, prepared to face the world as it was and not as she wanted it to be. She answered promptly: "Yes. And hungry, please. May I have some breakfast?" "Good child!" murmured Kitty approvingly. "As a matter of fact, your brekkie is coming hard on my heels"--gesturing, as she spoke, towards the trim maid who had followed her into the room, carrying an attractive-looking breakfast tray. When she had taken her departure, Kitty sat down and gossiped, while Nan did her best to appear as hungry as she had rashly implied she was. Somehow she must manage to throw dust in Kitty's keen eyes--and a simulated appetite made quite an excellent beginning. She was determined that no one should ever know that she was anything other than happy in her engagement to Roger. She owed him that much, at least. So when Kitty, making an effort to speak quite naturally, mentioned that Peter had been obliged to return to town unexpectedly, she accepted the news with an assumption of naturalness as good as Kitty's own. Half an hour later, leaving Nan to dress, Kitty departed with any suspicions she might have had entirely lulled. But her heart ached for the man whose haggard, stern-set face, when he had told her last night that he must go, had conveyed all, and more, than his brief words of explanation. "Must you really go, Peter?" she had asked him wistfully. "I thought--you told me once--that you didn't mean to break off your friendship? . . . Can't you even be friends with her?" His reply came swiftly and with a definiteness there was no mistaking. "No," he said. "I can't. It's true what you say--I did once think I might keep her friendship. I was wrong." There was a pause. Then Kitty asked quickly: "But you won't refuse to meet her? It isn't as bad as that, Peter?" He looked down at her oddly. "It's quite as bad as that."