an open book to him, and just now they were not very
pleasant reading.

"What about the concerto?" he asked her one day. "Aren't you going to
do anything with it?"

"Do anything with it?" she repeated vaguely.

"Yes, of course. Get it published--push it! You didn't write it just
for fun, I suppose?"

A faintly mocking smile upturned the corners of her mouth.

"I think Roger considers I wrote it expressly to annoy him," she
submitted.

"Rot!" he replied succinctly. "Just because he's not a trained
musician you appear to imagine he's devoid of ordinary appreciation."

"He is," she returned. "He hates my music. Yes, he does"--as Sandy
seemed about to protest. "He hates it!"

"Look here, Nan"--he became suddenly serious--"you're not playing fair
with Trenby. He's quite a good sort, but because he isn't a
scatter-brained artist like yourself, you're giving him a rotten time."

From the days when they had first known each other Sandy had taken it
upon himself at appropriate seasons to lecture Nan upon the error of
her ways, and it never occurred to her, even now, to resent it.
Instead, she answered him with unwonted meekness.

"I can't help it. Roger and I never see things in the same light,
and--and oh, Sandy, you might try to understand!" she ended appealingly.

"I think I do," he returned. "But it isn't cricket, Nan. You can kick
me out of the house if you like for saying it, but I don't think you
ought to have Maryon Rooke around so much."

She flushed hotly.

"He's painting my portrait," she protested.

"Taking a jolly long time over it, too--and making love to you in the
intervals, I suppose."

"Sandy!"

"Well, isn't he?" Sandy's green eyes met hers unflinchingly.

"Anyway, _I'm_ not in love with _him_."

"I should hope not," he observed drily, "seeing that you're going to be
Mrs. Trenby."

She gave an odd little laugh.

"That wouldn't make an insuperable barrier, would it? I don't
suppose--love--notices whether we're married or single when it comes
along."

Something in the quality of her voice filled him with a sudden sense of
fear. Hitherto he had attributed the trouble between Nan and Roger
entirely to the difference in their temperaments. Now, for the first
time, a new light was flashed upon the matter. Her tone was so sharply
bitter, like that of one chafing against some actual happening, that
his mind leaped to the possibility that there might be some more
tangible for