This he did untiringly, demanding nothing in return--and he alone knew the bitter effort it cost him.
Gradually Nan began to lean upon him, finding in the restfulness of such a friendship the healing of which she stood in need.

She worked at her music with suddenly renewed enthusiasm, secure in the knowledge that Peter was always at hand to help and criticise with kindly, unerring judgment.

She ceased to rail at fate and almost learned to bring a little philosophy--the happy philosophy of laughter--to bear upon the ills of life.
Consciously she thought of him only as Peter--Peter, her good pal--and so long as the pleasant, even course of their friendship remained uninterrupted she was never likely to realise that something bigger and more enduring than mere comradeship lay at the back of it all.

She, too, like Mallory, reassured herself with the fact of his marriage--though the wife she had never seen and of whom Peter never spoke had inevitably receded in her mind into a somewhat vague and nebulous personality.
"Well ?" demanded Kitty triumphantly one day.

"And what is your opinion of Peter Mallory now ?" As she spoke, she caressed with light finger-tips a bowl of sun-gold narcissus--Mallory habitually kept the Edenhall flat supplied with flowers.
"We're frankly grateful to you for introducing him," replied Penelope.
"He's been an absolute godsend all through this hateful long winter." "What's so perfect about him," added Nan, "is that he never jars on one.