“Nancy, I’ve taken my disappointment fairly well; you can’t deny that. I beg you to be kind and not insist on this repayment. I promise not to inflict myself or my hopes upon you. I’ll do anything you tell me, if only you’ll be generous over this. Your only motive for repaying me can be pride. Use your imagination and try to realise what it will mean for me if you insist. I do love you. I might have pretended that the magic of this night had turned my senses for a moment, but by being sincere I’ve ruined any hope I had for the future. My dream is shattered. Be generous.”
He looked so miserable, hunched up over the fire, that Nancy fought down her pride and agreed to accept as a present what he had already done. She was inclined to regret her weakness a moment later, when she saw that her surrender went far to restore Kenrick’s optimism about their future relations. He began to talk about the beauty of Italy in the Spring, of the peach blossoms in March and the orange-groves in April. The mistake was in having sent her out in Winter. In Spring she must think over everything and come out again. And so on, and so on until Nancy could have screamed with exasperation at his inability to comprehend the finality of her decision.
It was nearly two o’clock before Kenrick left Nancy’s room. The stress of argument had chased away her fatigue; but in Kenrick’s new mood she did not dare stand on the balcony and pore upon the hills of Sorrento floating like islands in that sea of moonshine. He was capable of supposing that she had changed her mind and of expecting the fulfilment of his passion. The fire had died down to a heap of glowing ashes. The room was heavy with the smoke of Kenrick’s incessant Macedonian cigarettes. So this was the end of Italy. Yet she did not feel more than a twinge or two of sentimental regret for the loveliness of earth and sea and sky that she was deliberately abandoning. She had the happiness of knowing that she had been true to herself. A dull, a bourgeois virtue perhaps for a rogue and a vagabond; but Nancy, knowing all that she now wanted from life, did not feel sorry for that self to which she had been true.
Three days later Italy seemed as far away as paradise, when the cliffs of England loomed through a driving mist of dirty southerly weather.
CHAPTER XXIII
CŒUR DE LION
It seemed as if fortune was anxious to compensate Nancy for the sudden shattering of her operatic dreams. The very first agent to whom she went on her return to London greeted her with something like acclamation.
“Why, Miss O’Finn, I am glad you’ve looked in this morning. Mr. Percy Mortimer”—the agent’s harsh voice sank to a reverential murmur—“Mr. Percy Mortimer has had some difficulty with the lady he engaged to play rather an important part in his new play at the Athenæum, and his secretary wrote to me to ask if I would send some ladies to interview him with a view to his engaging one of them. He requires a tall dark lady of some presence, and of course with the necessary experience. This would be a splendid opportunity for you, Miss O’Finn, if you happened to please Mr. Mortimer.”
“Naturally I should like nothing better than to be at the Athenæum,” said Nancy in a voice that was nearly as full of awe as the agent’s.
“It isn’t so much the salary,” he pointed out. “In fact, Mr. Mortimer does not believe in paying very large salaries to the actors and actresses who are supporting him. He thinks—and he is undoubtedly right—that to have one’s name on the programmes of the Athenæum is the equivalent of several pounds at most of the other London theatres.