ther, prepared to
face the world as it was and not as she wanted it to be. She answered
promptly:

"Yes. And hungry, please. May I have some breakfast?"

"Good child!" murmured Kitty approvingly. "As a matter of fact, your
brekkie is coming hard on my heels"--gesturing, as she spoke, towards the
trim maid who had followed her into the room, carrying an
attractive-looking breakfast tray. When she had taken her departure,
Kitty sat down and gossiped, while Nan did her best to appear as hungry
as she had rashly implied she was.

Somehow she must manage to throw dust in Kitty's keen eyes--and a
simulated appetite made quite an excellent beginning. She was determined
that no one should ever know that she was anything other than happy in
her engagement to Roger. She owed him that much, at least. So when
Kitty, making an effort to speak quite naturally, mentioned that Peter
had been obliged to return to town unexpectedly, she accepted the news
with an assumption of naturalness as good as Kitty's own. Half an hour
later, leaving Nan to dress, Kitty departed with any suspicions she might
have had entirely lulled.

But her heart ached for the man whose haggard, stern-set face, when he
had told her last night that he must go, had conveyed all, and more, than
his brief words of explanation.

"Must you really go, Peter?" she had asked him wistfully. "I
thought--you told me once--that you didn't mean to break off your
friendship? . . . Can't you even be friends with her?"

His reply came swiftly and with a definiteness there was no mistaking.

"No," he said. "I can't. It's true what you say--I did once think I
might keep her friendship. I was wrong."

There was a pause. Then Kitty asked quickly:

"But you won't refuse to meet her? It isn't as bad as that, Peter?"

He looked down at her oddly.

"It's quite as bad as that."

She felt herself trembling a little at the queer intensity of his tone.
It was as though the man beside her were keeping in check, by sheer force
of will, some big emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. She
hesitated, then spoke very quietly and simply:

"That was a perfectly selfish question on my part, Peter. Don't take any
notice of it."

"How--selfish?" he asked, with a faint smile.

"Because, if you refuse to meet Nan, I shall always have to see you
separately--never together. I love you both and I can't give up either
of you, so it will be rather like cutting myself in