"He's the man you love.

The very expression of your face gave it away." "I've told you," she answered unemotionally.

"Peter Mallory is nothing to me, never can be anything, except"-- her voice quivered a little despite herself--"just a friend." Maryon's eyes searched her face.
"Then kiss me!" He repeated his earlier demand, imperiously.
She drew back.
"Why should I kiss you ?" The quietly uttered question seemed to set him very far apart from her.
In an instant he knew how much he had forfeited by his absence.
"Nan," he said, in his voice a curious charm of appeal, "do you know it's nearly a year since I saw you?
And now--now I've only half an hour!" "Only half an hour ?" she repeated vaguely.
"Yes, I go back to Devonshire to-night.

But I craved a glimpse of the 'Beloved' before I went." The words brought Nan sharply back to herself.

He was still the same incomprehensible, unsatisfactory lover as of old, and with the realisation a cold fury of scorn and resentment swept over her, blotting out what she had always counted as her love for him.