Nan played softly, humming the melody in the wistful little pipe of a voice which was all that Mature had endowed her with. But it had an appealing quality—the heart-touching quality of the mezzo-soprano—while through the music ran the same unsatisfied cry as in her setting of the old Tentmaker's passionate words—a terrible demand for those things that life sometimes withholds.
As she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.
"It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees the good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wants the most—he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life—the great god Circumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mighty badly sometimes! And that's why I can't—why I mustn't—"
He broke off abruptly, checking what he had intended to say. Nan felt as though a door had been shut in her face. This man had a rare faculty for implying everything and saying nothing.
"I don't understand," she said rather low.
"An artist isn't a free agent—not free to take the things life offers," he answered steadily. "He's seen 'the far Moon' with the Dreamer's eyes, and that's probably all he'll ever see of it. His 'empty hands' may not even grasp at the star."
He had adapted the verses very cleverly to suit his purpose. With a sudden flash of intuition Nan understood him, and the fear which had knocked at her heart, when Penelope had assumed that there was a definite understanding between herself and Rooke, knocked again. Poetically wrapped up, he was in reality handing her out her congé—frankly admitting that art came first and love a poor second.
He twisted his shoulders irritably.
"Last talks are always odious!" he flung out abruptly.
"Last?" she queried. Her fingers were trifling nervously with the pages of an album of songs that rested against the music-desk.