He was silent, pondering this aspect of the matter. She watched him curiously for a few moments, then, driven, by one of those strange impulses which sometimes fling down all the barriers of reserve, she broke into rapid speech. "You needn't grudge me Maryon's friendship! I've lost everything in the world worth having--everything real, I mean. Sometimes I feel as though I can't bear it any longer! And Maryon interests me . . . he's a sort of mental relation. . . . When I'm with him I can forget even Peter for a little. . . ." She broke off, pacing restlessly backwards and forwards, her hands interlocked, her face set in a white mask of tragedy. All at once she came to a standstill in front of Sandy and remained staring at him with an odd kind of surprise in her eyes. "What on earth have I been talking about?" she exclaimed, passing her hand across her forehead and peering at him questioningly. "Sandy, have you been listening? You shouldn't listen to what other people are thinking. It's rude, you know." She laughed a little hysterically. "You must just forget it all, Sandy boy." Sandy had been listening with a species of horror to the sudden outpouring. He felt as though he had overheard the crying of a soul which has reached the furthest limit of its endurance. In Nan's disjointed, broken sentences had been revealed the whole piteous truth, and in those two short words, "_Even Peter_!" lay the key to all he had found so difficult to understand. It was Peter Mallory she loved--not Roger, nor Maryon Rooke! He had once met Mallory and had admired the man enormously. The meeting had occurred during the summer preceding that which had witnessed Nan's engagement to Roger. Peter had been paying a flying week-end visit to the Seymours, and Sandy had taken a boy's instinctive liking to the brilliant writer who never "swanked," as the lad put it, but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan McBain's uncompromising attitude towards music had been the cause. And this was the man Nan loved and who loved her! With instinctive tact, Sandy refrained from any comment on Nan's outburst. Instead, he pushed her gently into a chair, talking the while, so that she might have time to recover herself a little. "I tell you what it is, Nan," he said with rough kindness. "You've overdone it a bit working at that concerto, and instead of giving yourself a holiday, you've been tiring yourself still more by sitting for your portrait. You may find Rooke mentally refreshing if you like, but posing for him hour after hour is a confounded strain, physically. Now, you take your good Uncle Sandy's advice and let the portrait slide for a bit. You might occupy yourself by making arrangements for the production of the concerto." "I don't feel any interest in it," she said slowly. "It's funny, isn't it, Sandy? I was so keen about it when I was writing it. And now I think it's rotten."