Kitty gave her a searching glance. But for two spots of feverishly vivid colour in her cheeks, the girl's face was very pale, and her eyes over-bright, with heavy shadows underlying them.
"Very well," she said kindly. "Tuck yourself up in one of the lounge chairs and I'll see that no one bothers you."
But Nan was in no mood for a lounge chair. Lighting a cigarette, she paced restlessly up and down the flagged path of the quadrangular court, absorbed in her thoughts.
It seemed to her as though Fate had suddenly given her a gentle push in the direction of marriage with Roger. She knew now that Penny had refused Ralph solely on her account—so that she might not be left alone. If she could go to her and tell her that she herself was about to marry Trenby, then the only obstacle which stood in the way of Penelope's happiness would be removed. Last night her thoughts had swung from side to side in a ceaseless ding-dong struggle of indecision, but this new factor in the matter weighted the scales heavily in favour of her marrying Trenby.
At last she made up her mind. There were two chances, two avenues which might lead away from him. Should both of these be closed against her, she would yield to the current of affairs which now seemed set to sweep her into his arms.
She would use her utmost persuasions to induce Penelope to marry Ralph Fenton, irrespective of whether she herself proposed to enter the matrimonial state or not. That was the first of her two chances. For if she succeeded in prevailing upon Penelope to retract her refusal of Ralph, she would feel that she had dealt at least one blow against the fate which seemed to be driving her onward. The urgency of that last push towards Roger would be removed! Then if Penelope remained obdurate, to-morrow she would tell Trenby frankly that she had no love, but only liking, to give him, and she would insist upon his facing the fact that there had been someone else in her life who had first claim upon her heart. That would be her other chance. And should Roger—as well he might—refuse to take second best, then willy-nilly she would be once more thrust forth into the troublous sea of longing and desire. But if he still wanted her—why, then she would have been quite honest with him and it would seem to be her destiny to be his wife. She would leave it at that—leave it for chance, or fate, or whatever it is that shapes our ends, to settle a matter that, swayed as she was by opposing forces, she was unable to decide for herself.
She heaved a sigh of relief. After those wretched, interminable hours of irresolution, when love, and fear of that same love, had tortured her almost beyond bearing, it was an odd kind of comfort to feel that she had given herself two chances, and, if both failed, to know that she must abide by the result.
The turmoil of her mind drove her at last almost insensibly towards the low, wide wall facing the unquiet sea. Here she sat down, still absorbed in her thoughts, her gaze resting absently on the incoming tide below. She was conscious of a strange feeling of communion with the shifting, changeful waters.
As far as eye could see the great billows of the Atlantic, silver-crested in the brilliant moonlight, came tumbling shoreward, breaking at last against the inviolate cliffs with a dull, booming noise like the sound of distant guns. Then came the suction of retreat, as the beaten waves were hurled backwards from the fierce headlands in a grey tumult of surging waters, while the big stones and pebbles over which they swirled clashed and ground together, roaring under the pull of the outgoing current—that "drag" of which any Cornish seaman will warn a stranger in the grave tones of one who knows its peril.
To right and left, at the foot of savage cliffs black against the silver moonlight, Nan could see the long combers roll in and break into a cloud of upflung spray, girdling the wild coast with a zone of misty, moonlit spray that must surely have been fashioned in some dim world of faëry.