iculous person!"

She was smiling now. Something in his anger reminded her of an enraged
small boy. It woke in her the eternal motherhood which lies in every
woman and she felt that she wanted to comfort him. She could forgive
him his violence. In his furious antagonism towards the art which
meant so much to her, she traced the combined influence of Lady
Gertrude and Isobel. Not merely the latter's pin-pricks at dinner this
particular evening, but the constant pressure of criticism of which she
was the subject.

"You ridiculous person! If you did smash the piano, it wouldn't make
me any less a musician. And"--lightly--"I really can't have you being
jealous of an inanimate thing like a grand piano!"

Roger's frown relaxed a little. His threat to smash the piano sounded
foolish even in his own ears. But he hated the instrument none the
less, although without precisely knowing why. Subconsciously he was
aware that the real Nan still eluded him. She was his in the eyes of
the world--pledged to be his wife--yet he knew that although he might
possess her body it would bring him no nearer the possession of her
soul and spirit. That other man--the one for whom she had told him she
once cared--held those! Trenby was not given to psychological
analysis, but in a blind, bewildered fashion he felt that that thing of
wood and ivory and stretched strings represented in concrete form
everything that stood betwixt himself and Nan.

"Have I nothing else--_no one else_"--significantly---"to be jealous
of?" he demanded. "Answer me!"

With a swift movement he gripped her by the shoulder, forcing her to
face him again, his eyes still stormy. She winced involuntarily under
the pressure of his fingers, but forced herself to answer him.

"You know," she said quietly. "I told you when you asked me to be your
wife that--that there was--someone--for whom I cared. But, if you
believed _all_ I told you then--you know, too, that you have no reason
to be jealous."

"You mean because you can't marry him?"--moodily.

"Yes."

The brief reply acted like a spark to tinder. With a stifled
exclamation he caught her up in his arms, crushing his mouth down on
hers till her lips felt bruised beneath his kisses.

"It's not enough!" he said, his voice hoarse and shaken. "It's not
enough! I want you--the whole of you, Nan--Nan!"

For an instant she struggled against him--almost instinctively. Then,
remembering she had given him