The Moon out of Reach Part 9

"I'm so glad. I thought the Chattertons would look after you well."

"They did."

She omitted to add that someone else had looked after her even better--someone distinctly more interesting than dear old Lady Chatterton, kindest soul alive though she might be. For some reason or other Nan felt reluctant to share with Penelope--or with anyone else just at present--the fact of her meeting with Peter Mallory.

"You caught your train all right at Paddington?" went on Penelope.

Nan's mouth tilted in a faint smile.

"Quite all right," she responded placidly.

Finding that the question and answer process was not getting them very far, Penelope resumed her darning and announced her own small item of news.

"Kit's been here this afternoon," she said.

Nan shrugged her shoulders.

"Just my luck to miss her," she muttered irritably.

"No, it isn't 'just your luck,' my dear. It's anyone's luck. You make such a grievance of trifles."

In an instant Nan's charming smile flashed out.

"I _am_ a _beast_," she said in a tone of acquiescence. "What on earth should I do without you, Penny, to bully me and generally lick me into shape?" She dropped a light kiss on the top of Penelope's bent head.

"But, truly, I hate to miss Kit Seymour. She's as good as a tonic--and just now I feel like a bottle of champagne that's been uncorked for a week."

"You're overtired," replied Penelope prosaically. "You're so--so _excessive_ in all you do."

Nan laughed.

"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," she acknowledged. "Well, what's the Kitten's news? What colour is her hair this season?"

"Red. It suits her remarkably well."

Nan rippled with mirth.

"I never knew a painted Jezebel so perfectly delightful as Kitty. Even Aunt Eliza can't resist her."

Mrs. McBain, generally known to her intimates as "Aunt Eliza," was a connection of Nan's on the paternal side. She was a lady of Scottish antecedents and Early Victorian tendencies, to whom the modern woman and her methods were altogether anathema. She regarded her niece as walking--or, more truly, pirouetting aggressively--along the road which leads to destruction.

Penelope folded a pair of renovated stockings and tossed them into her work-basket.

"The Seymours want us to dine there on Thursday. I suppose you can?" she asked.

"With all the pleasure in life. Their chef is a dream," murmured Nan reminiscently.

"As though you cared!" scoffed Penelope.

Nan lit a cigarette and seated herself on the humpty-dumpty cus.h.i.+on by the fire.

"But I do care--extremely." she averred. "It isn't my little inside which cares. It's a purely external feeling which likes to have everything just right. If it's going to be a dinner, I want it perfect from soup to savoury."

Penelope regarded her with a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You're such a demanding person."

"I know I am--about the way things are done. What pleasure is there in anything which offends your sense of fitness?"

"You bestow far too much importance on the outside of the cup and platter."

Nan shook her head.

"_Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais--Je bois dans mon verre._" she quoted, frivolously obstinate.

"Bah!" Penelope grunted, "The critical faculty is over-developed in you, my child."

"Not a bit! Would you like to drink champagne out of a kitchen tea-cup?

Of course not. I merely apply the same principle to other things. For instance, if the man I married ate peas with a knife and made loud juicy noises when he drank his soup, not all the sterling qualities he might possess would compensate. Whereas if he had perfect manners, I believe I could forgive him half the sins in the Decalogue."

"Manners are merely an external," protested Penelope, although privately she acknowledged to a sneaking agreement with Nan's point of view.

"Well," retorted Nan. "We've got to live with externals, haven't we?

It's only on rare occasions that people admit each other on to their souls' doorsteps. Besides"--argumentatively--"decent manners _aren't_ an external. They're the 'outward and visible sign.' Why"--waxing enthusiastic--"if a man just opens a door or puts some coal on the fire for you, it involves a whole history of the homage and protective instinct of man for woman."

"The theory may be correct," admitted Penelope, "though a trifle idealistic for the twentieth century. Most men," she added drily, "Regard coaling up the fire as a d.a.m.ned nuisance rather than a 'history of homage.'"

"It oughtn't to be idealistic." There was a faint note of wistfulness in Nan's voice. "Why should everything that is beautiful be invariably termed 'idealistic'? Oh, there are ten thousand things I'd like altered in this world of ours!"

"Of course there are. You wouldn't be you otherwise! You want a specially constructed world and a peculiarly adapted human nature. In fact--you want the moon!"

Nan stared into the fire reflectively.

"I wonder," she said slowly, "if I shall get it?"

Penelope glanced at her sharply.

"It's highly improbable," she said. "But a little philosophy would be quite as useful--and a far more likely acquisition."

As she finished speaking a bell pealed through the flat--pealed with an irritable suggestion that it had been rung unavailingly before. Followed the abigail's footstep as she pursued her unhurried way to answer its imperative demand, and presently a visitor was shown into the room. He was a man of over seventy, erect and well-preserved, with white hair and clipped moustache. There was an indefinable courtliness of manner about him which recalled the days of lace ruffles and knee-breeches. The two girls rose to greet him with unfeigned delight.

"Uncle!" cried Nan. "How dear of you to come just when our spirits were at their lowest ebb!"

"My dears!" He kissed his niece and shook hands with Penelope. Nan pushed an armchair towards the fire and tendered her cigarette case.

"You needn't be afraid of them, Uncle David," she informed him rea.s.suringly. "They're not gaspers."

"Sybarite! With the same confidence as if they were my own." And Lord St. John helped himself smilingly.

"And why," he continued, "has the barometer fallen?"