is week. I can't stand town in July. What date
are you coming to us?"

Peter was silent a moment, his eyes bent on the ground. Then he raised
his head suddenly as though he had just come to a decision.

"I'm afraid I shan't be able to come down," he said quietly.

"But you promised us!" objected Kitty. "Peter, you can't go back on a
promise!"

He regarded her gravely. Then:

"Sometimes one has to do--even that."

Kitty, discerning in his refusal another facet of that "something
wrong" she had suspected, clasped her hands round her knees and faced
him with deliberation.

"Look here, Peter, it isn't you to break a promise without some real
good reason. You say you can't come down to us at Mallow. Why not?"

He met her eyes steadily.

"I can't answer that," he replied.

Kitty remained obdurate.

"I want an answer, Peter. We've been pals for some time now,
and"--with vigour--"I'm not going to be kept out of whatever it is
that's hurting you. So tell me."

He made no answer, and she slipped down from the Chesterfield and came
to his side.

"Is it anything to do with Nan?" she asked gently, her thoughts going
back to the talk she had had with Penelope before the bridge party
began.

A rather weary smile curved his lips.

"It doesn't seem much use trying to keep you in the dark, does it?"

"I must know," she urged. Adding with feminine guile:

"Of course I should be frightfully hurt if I thought you weren't coming
just because you didn't want to. But still I'd rather know--even if
that were the reason."

"Not want to?" he broke out, his control suddenly snapping. "I'd give
my soul to come!"

The bitterness in his voice--in the lazy, drawling tones she knew so
well--let in a flood of light upon the darkness in which she had been
groping.

"Peter--oh, Peter!" she cried tremulously. "You're not--you don't mean
that you care for Nan--seriously?"

"I don't think many men could be with her much without caring," he
answered simply.

"Oh, I'm sorry--I'm sorry! . . . I--I never thought of that when I
asked you to be a pal to her." Her voice shook uncontrollably.

He smiled again--the game half-weary, half-tenderly amused smile which
was so characteristic.

"You needn't be sorry," he said, speaking with great gentleness. "I
shall never be sorry that I love her. It's only that just now she
doesn't need me. That's why I won't come down to Mallow."

"Not need you!"

"No. The man she n