ng his
words.

"Fate has given you one of her back-handers, I think, and you want the
thing you can't have--want it rather badly. And just now--nothing
seems quite worth while."

"Go on," she said very low.

He hesitated. Then, as if suddenly making up his mind to hit hard, as
a surgeon might decide to use the knife, he spoke incisively:

"The man wasn't worth it."

Nan gave a faint, irrepressible start. Recovering herself quickly, she
contrived a short laugh.

"You don't know him--" she began.

"But I know you."

"This is only our second meeting."

"What of that? I know you well enough to be sure--quite sure--that you
wouldn't give unasked. You're too proud, too analytical, and--at
present--too little passionate."

Nan's face whitened. It was true; she had not given unasked, for
although Maryon Rooke had never actually asked her to marry him, his
whole attitude had been that of the demanding lover.

"You're rather an uncanny person," she said at last, slowly. "You
understand--too much."

"_Tout comprendre--c'est tout pardonner_," quoted Mallory gently.

Nan fenced.

"And do I need pardon?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered simply, "You're not the woman God meant you to be.
You're too critical, too cold--without passion."

"And I a musician?"--incredulously.

"Oh, it's in your music right enough. The artist in you has it. But
the woman--so far, no. You're too introspective to surrender blindly.
Artiste, analyst, critic first--only _woman_ when those other three are
satisfied."

Nan nodded.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I believe that's true."

"I think it is," he affirmed quietly. "And because men are what they
are, and you are you, it's quite probable you'll fail to achieve the
triumph of your womanhood." He paused, then added: "You're not one of
those who would count the world well lost for love, you know--except on
the impulse of an imaginative moment."

"No, I'm not," she answered reflectively. "I wonder why?"

"Why? Oh, you're a product of the times--the primeval instincts almost
civilised out of you."

Nan sprang to her feet with a laugh.

"I won't stay here to be vivisected one moment longer!" she declared.
"People like you ought to be blindfolded."

"Anything you like--so long as I'm forgiven."

"I think you'll have to be forgiven--in remembrance of the day when you
took up a passenger in Hyde Park!"--smiling.

Soon afterwards people began to take their departure, Nan