"What--as you are?" He smiled at her, but so kindly that she could not take offence. "Well, to begin with, your punt is miles away by now, and anyway you are much too wet to leave this house. Now"--he went briskly to the door--"I'm going to fetch my bath and I'll have it filled in a jiffy. You'll feel all right after a hot soak."

He went out, leaving Toni, very wet and uncomfortable, in the middle of the floor. In a minute he returned, dragging after him a good-sized bath, filled to the brim with towels of every description.

"Now, I'll put it here, in front of the fire." He worked as he spoke.

"And if I fill these two big cans there'll be enough water. What a blessing Mrs. Swastika kept a good fire to-day."

"Mrs. Swastika?" In the midst of her discomfiture Toni thought the name odd.

"Oh, that's not her real name." He filled the cans vigorously. "She is really Swanson or Swanage or something like that--but I never know what it is, so I call her Swastika. She is rather like the individual in the 'Hunting of the Snark,' who 'answered to Hi or to any loud cry,' but it's handy having a name to call her by sometimes."

He broke off in his nonsense and disappeared abruptly, leaving Toni wondering whether she was intended to begin her ablutions or no. Luckily she decided to wait a moment, and was glad she had done so when her host returned, bearing in his arms some garments, which he put down on a chair rather apologetically.

"I'm really most awfully sorry, Mrs. Rose, but I've no feminine fripperies of any sort! But if you can possibly make these things do for a bit, I'll send a boy on a bicycle down to your place and tell them to put together some clothes for you."

"Oh, will you?" Toni was beginning to find her soaked garments rather unpleasantly chilly. "I live at Greenriver--oh, you know?--and if you tell the housekeeper to send me everything, she'll know what I want."

"Very well." He had been busying himself with a little saucepan over the fire as she spoke, and now he handed her a gla.s.s containing some mulled wine.

"I'll dispatch a lad at once--in the meantime please drink this--it's quite harmless, I a.s.sure you!"

As she took the gla.s.s he hurried to the door, and went out, pulling it carefully to after him.

"Pull down the blind and lock the door," he commanded her through the keyhole. "The back door is locked already, so you are quite safe."

As soon as he was gone, and her privacy a.s.sured, Toni lost no time in doing as he bade her; and it certainly was a relief to slip out of her clinging garments and plunge into the hot water waiting for her. She did not waste time, remembering his commands; but when it came to a question of re-dressing, and she examined the clothes he had brought, Toni gave way and burst into a fit of irrepressible laughter.

He had apologized for the lack of feminine garments, but Toni had not been prepared for the subst.i.tute he had given her. There, beneath the heavy dressing-gown, was a pair of silk pyjamas immaculately got up and folded; and at the sight of their purple and white glories Toni laughed and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.

At first she determined that nothing in the world would persuade her to don the resplendent pyjamas. Then a glance at her own soaked and now steaming clothing gave her courage; and giggling softly to herself she got into the silken garments, which by dint of much turning up of hems and shortening of sleeves were given some semblance of a fit. Next came the dressing-gown, an eminently masculine affair of brown camel's hair, with red collar and cuffs, and when she had tied the girdle round her waist, and, scorning the evening socks which lay ready, had slipped her bare feet into a pair of capacious slippers, Toni was so overcome by her own bizarre appearance that once more she burst out laughing gaily.

A knock at the door made her stop short, and she called out in a rather quavery voice:

"Yes? Who's there?"

"Only I--Herrick," came the answer. "When you're ready will you come into the other room? The sun's blazing in, but I can easily light a fire if you feel chilly."

Toni cast a doubtful look at herself in this queer garb, and then determined, very sensibly, that it was no good being prudish and silly.

After all, the dressing-gown wrapped her up completely; and at any rate her own clothes would presently arrive to deliver her from this rather absurd situation.

"I'm coming in a minute," she called out gaily. "I'm just going to let my hair down--it's rather wet, but it will dry in the sun."

She pulled out her hair-pins recklessly, and the black waves tumbled wetly on to her shoulders. A few minutes' vigorous drying before the fire met with success, and presently Toni found courage to unlock the door and sally forth into the little hall.

Mr. Herrick was waiting for her by the sitting-room door, and he bit his lip quickly at sight of the funny little figure emerging from the kitchen.

He spoke quite gravely, however, and Toni, who had glanced at him rather sharply, felt rea.s.sured.

"That's right. Now, come and sit down, will you? See, if you take this chair, you're in the sun, and it will warm you. You're sure you're not cold?"

"Oh, no, I'm quite warm," Toni a.s.sured him. "It's only my hair that's wet, and it won't take long to dry."

While her eyes wandered casually round the room, Herrick took the opportunity of observing his guest more closely; and his scrutiny pleased him oddly.

In spite of her ludicrous garb Toni looked quaintly attractive. Her youth triumphed, as youth always will, over minor drawbacks, and now that she was warm and dry the colour was coming back to her lips and her complexion recovering its creamy tone. Even her hair curled bewitchingly when damp; and Herrick owned that Barry's description of her as a "pretty kid" had not been wrong.

As for Toni, she was much interested in this sunny, shabby room. The carpet might be old, beyond spoiling, as its owner described it, but it was a feast of soft, harmonious colours all the same, and although faded, its very dimness of hue was a charm. The curtains which hung at the long windows were of a queer, Persian-looking fabric; and on the mantelpiece were a dozen little bits of pottery of a greeny-blue tint which harmonized excellently with the grey-papered walls.

Books there were in plenty, on shelves and tables, even on two of the chairs; and as she looked about her Toni caught sight of the last number of the _Bridge_ lying on the low divan as though thrown there by a reader disturbed in his reading.

Herrick's eyes had followed the direction of hers.

"You recognize your husband's review? You've seen it, of course, this last number?"

"Yes." She had seen it, though it is to be feared that she had paid it scant attention.

"It's better than ever this month." He sat down and took up the paper.

"There's a little poem--'Pan-Shapes'--which simply delighted me. Did it take your fancy, I wonder?"

"I ... I don't think I have read it," she said, wishing suddenly that she had not been forced to make the admission.

"No? Well it has not been out long." He was turning the pages as he spoke. "There's something else here--another special article on Mysticism by Father Garland, which is oddly fascinating. Of course such a subject, treated by one of the greatest mystics who ever lived, was bound to be of the highest interest; but I never expected anything quite so arresting, so satisfying, when I began to read."

He paused, evidently waiting for her to speak; but Toni sat tongue-tied, miserably conscious that in her mind no answering enthusiasm could be born, since she had neither read nor wished to read a single word of the article in question.

A hint of her mental discomfort probably reached the man on the sofa by some telepathic means, for he suddenly tossed away the review and spoke in a lighter tone.

"How long have you been punting, Mrs. Rose?"

"Oh, a very short time," she said rather apologetically. "My husband has given me some lessons since we came down here. He doesn't know I sometimes go out alone," she added ingenuously. "I don't go very often, because I know I'm not much good. But to-day I saw some people coming to call and I ran out of the house and jumped into the punt so that I could escape."

Herrick smiled.

"What--are you like me? Do you avoid your fellow-creatures on principle?"

She looked a little puzzled.

"Oh no, I don't avoid people when I know them. But I've had such heaps of callers, and it's such a waste of time making conversation over tea when one wants to be out in the sunshine."

"In fact you prefer nature to human nature?"

"I suppose I do." She frowned rather thoughtfully. "At least I would always rather be out of the house than in it. And it's so lovely by the river in the summer. I go for walks before breakfast with my dog, and the world is so beautiful in the early morning before the mists have all vanished in the sun."

"Ah! That reminds me!" Herrick rose. "You haven't seen _my_ dog! I'll go and bring her in; she's lying in the shade at the back at present."

He went out, returning in a moment with the stately Olga, who had been, as he suggested, sleeping in the shade. He kept his hand on her silver collar as she advanced, fearing that Toni's queer mixture of garments might upset her canine mind; but Olga apparently took her master's friends on trust, and presently strolled over to Toni and laid one long paw tentatively upon her knee.

Toni, delighted, stroked the beautiful creature affectionately, and Herrick said to himself cheerfully: