Dinner had passed without incident.
Sustained by the presence of Penelope and Ralph, Nan had carried through her part in it with a brilliance and reckless daring which revealed nothing at all of the turmoil of confused emotions which underlay her apparent gaiety.
She seemed to have become a new being this evening, an enchanting creature of flame and fire.

She said the most outrageous things at dinner, talking a lot of clever nonsense but sheering quickly away if any more serious strain of thought crept into the conversation.

For an instant she might plumb the depths, the next she would be winging lightly over the surface again, while a spray of sparkling laughter rose and fell around her.

With butterfly touch she opened the cupboard of memory, daring Peter the while with her eyes, skimming the thin ice of bygone times with the adroitness of an expert skater.
She was wearing the frock which had called forth Lady Gertrude's ire, and from its filmy folds her head and shoulders emerged like a flower from its sheath, vividly arresting, her scarlet lips and "blue-violet" eyes splashes of live colour against the warm golden ivory of her skin.
It was Nan at her most emotionally distracting, now sparkling with an almost feverish vivacity, now drooping into sudden silence, while the lines of her delicately angled face took on a touching, languorous appeal.
But now, now that the need for playing a part was over, and she stood waiting for Mallory's return, something tragic and desperate looked out of her eyes.

She paced the room restlessly.