The owner of the other car, who was only too palpably a novice in the art of driving, confounded himself in apologies. He was indeed so manifestly upset and distressed to find what his carelessness had done, that in the midst of his own natural annoyance Owen found time to a.s.sure him of his complete forgiveness; and the irony of the situation was made evident when it leaked out that the offender was a surgeon, resident in the district, who practised the art of motoring in his spare moments.

He insisted on Owen returning with him to receive all the care and attention his medical skill could supply; and thus it was that when the car, driven by Barry, finally drew up in front of the hall door of Greenriver, Toni, running down the steps to greet her husband and his visitor, was startled to observe Owen, a trifle pale, descend from the car with his right arm supported in a black silk sling.

"Owen!" Every vestige of colour died out of Toni's face. "What has happened? You've had an accident!"

"Nothing much, dear!" He spoke rea.s.suringly. "Collided with another car outside Staines, and I've broken my stupid arm. But that's all."

"Quite enough," struck in Barry, smiling. "No one else was hurt, Mrs.

Rose--not even the old idiot who was to blame."

"It's nearly dinner-time, I suppose," said Owen, looking up at the hall clock. "We started early to take you on the river, Toni, but I'm afraid it's too late now."

"And you're disabled," said Barry. "You'll be dependent on our good offices for your dinner; won't he, Mrs. Rose?"

And so it proved, for like a good many people Owen felt utterly at a loss with only one available hand. To Toni fell the task of cutting up his food, and her big eyes grew anxious as she noted his lack of appet.i.te.

As a matter of fact Owen felt disinclined for food, for anything but solitude and rest. His head was aching, and his arm was beginning to pain him so severely that he feared sleep would be out of the question.

After dinner he yielded to the joint entreaties of Toni and Barry and went to bed; leaving his wife to entertain his guest until the car should come round to take him to the station.

The evening had closed in with rain, and the two sat by one of the widely-opened windows in the drawing-room, looking out into the dusky garden, and listening to the soft patter of the rain on the foliage bordering the lawn. There was no wind, and against the cloudy sky the tall trees stood like black giants holding out immovable arms, while from the flowers, refreshed by the shower after their hot, thirsty day, a grateful fragrance rose to sweeten the damp, cool air.

For some time Barry and his hostess sat in silence. Toni had taken her favourite low chair, and her hands lay idly in her lap, the wedding-ring which was their sole ornament gleaming in the lamplight. To Barry's eyes her youthful prettiness had a slightly dimmed effect. Without losing anything of its virginal purity of outline there was a hint of weariness, of almost jaded fatigue, which startled Barry. He thought always of Toni as some joyous woodland nymph, a pagan it might be, a hedonist by nature and training; and while he had regretted, formerly, her lack of worldly and womanly experience, it gave him something of a pang at heart to find that this little pagan creature, this pretty, wild, untutored Undine could apparently lose, for the moment at least, her joy in the "sweet things" of life. That in the process she might be slowly and painfully realizing her soul he did not stop to think. To him the fatigue in her face was pathetic; to Herrick it would have been enlightening.

"Mr. Raymond----" Toni spoke at last, and he threw off his absorption to listen. "If Owen's arm is broken, how will he do his work?"

"That is just what I've been wondering," said Barry. "Of course the ordinary office work, the work of the _Bridge_, will go on all right without him for a bit. I mean--well, you see I can look after things pretty well, and we have an excellent secretary in Miss Loder."

"But his own work? He is writing a book--a novel, isn't he? He said something about it--though he hasn't read any of it to me," added Toni rather wistfully.

"I don't suppose he's got very far," said Barry, wondering whether she felt slighted by the omission. "Owen is a quick worker, I know, but he has only been at it for a week or two."

"Oh, I know," she replied hastily. "But how will he go on with it? He can't write with his left hand, can he?"

"Not very well." An idea struck Barry, and without stopping to think he gave it utterance. "Look here, Mrs. Rose, you can help Owen no end! You must take it down for him. You could easily scribble it off and then type it out afterwards, couldn't you?"

Into Toni's eyes flashed a light of pure joy.

"Oh, do you think I could! I'd do anything--anything to help Owen," she said eagerly. "It wouldn't be like his articles, full of quotations and things that want verifying, would it? I mean even a stupid girl--like me--could do it, couldn't she?"

"You're not stupid," he rallied her gaily. "Look how quickly you learned to read proof! And even the superior Miss Loder doesn't type as well as you!"

"Doesn't she!" Toni's depression had vanished like magic, and her eyes were sparkling as she looked at him. "Oh, if I could! But I don't believe I dare offer, Mr. Raymond! Do you think if _you_ were to mention it to Owen----"

"Oh, it would come much better from you!" Barry, whose interference on the subject of Owen's marriage had not been too well received, shrank from further officiousness. "If you propose it, I'm sure Owen will jump at it; and he won't mind his enforced helplessness half so much if he can get on with the book."

For a moment Toni said nothing.

The rain had ceased, and in the darkened sky one or two pale-gold stars were gleaming. The air was full of sweet, moist scents; and a big white owl flew by the window, looking weird and ghostly in the dusk. A moment later they heard him hoot from his eyrie in one of the tall tree-tops, and Toni shivered a little.

"I can't get used to their queer cries," she said in a low voice.

"Sometimes I hear them in the night, and they make me shudder. Owen laughs at me, and quotes Shakespeare, about the owl and the baker's daughter, but I hate them, all the same."

"I rather like them," said Barry lightly. "Anyway, you mustn't drive them away; it's the very worst of luck to turn them out of their accustomed dwelling-places!"

"Then, they'll have to stop, I suppose," said Toni practically. "But I shall go on hating them all the same!"

Barry laughed and turned the conversation back to her proposed collaboration with Owen; and Toni was only too eager to discuss the subject, which lasted, indeed, until Barry said good-bye.

His last glimpse of her was as she stood on the steps calling out her farewell; and he carried away a clearly-cut impression of the slight, blue-robed figure, her black hair a little loosened round her eager, vivid face, her eyes full of a new and ardent resolution, which had quite banished the look of sadness and fatigue he had noticed earlier in the evening.

It was evident his suggestion had fired her heart and mind, and for a moment, as he was borne swiftly down the black avenue on to the high road, Barry asked himself if he had done well to light that lamp of hope and high desire in her soul.

If Owen should refuse her aid, if he should let her see that he had no desire for help from her, no exportation of any adequate service, the flame which Barry's words had lit would be cruelly extinguished, leaving in its place only the blank and utter darkness of disillusionment.

And once removed from her beseeching presence, Barry wondered, rather hopelessly, if indeed Toni's help would be of any value. She was ready, eager indeed, to be of use; but was she capable of work such as Owen would require?

Against his will Barry had a vision of Miss Loder in Toni's place--not as wife, but as a.s.sistant--and he confessed to himself with a groan that the highly-finished product of school and college would probably prove herself of far more practical use than the impulsive, emotional, and alas! unliterary Toni.

But the harm was done now. He had lighted the torch in Toni's soul, and he could only hope that no adverse breath would blow to extinguish its flame.

CHAPTER XVI

"Toni, I have a proposal to make. Suppose you stop typing for a little while and listen to me. Will you, dear?"

Toni, all the colour slipping out of her face, put down the sheet she had just taken up and waited obediently to hear Owen's proposal.

This was the ninth day of their mutual labour; and even Toni's optimism could not a.s.sert that the experience had been successful.

She had tried so hard, poor Toni. With every nerve strained to the utmost, with her mind emptied of anything which did not bear upon the subject in hand, she had striven to help Owen, to take down from dictation the words, the sentences, in which his thoughts were clothed.

She had learned not to look up expectantly at every pause, since she had realized that to the hara.s.sed author, struggling for the one right phrase, that bright expectancy exercised a deadening effect; and she never even raised her head when silence fell--the silence in which Owen weighed and sifted his material, selecting this, rejecting that, and embodying the result in just the one glowing, clean-cut sentence which would effectually tell.

But Toni found herself, all unwillingly, handicapped, by her non-comprehension both of the matter and method of Owen's creative work.

A plain, straightforward story Toni could a.s.similate easily enough.

Something primitive in her responded, also, to the call of the world-wide emotions of love, hatred, revenge; but Owen's book dealt with none of these; and the subtle philosophy, the carefully interwoven motives of political expediency and half-reluctant patriotism were alike uninteresting and unintelligible.

Where she did not understand, it was natural she should transcribe incorrectly; and although it was easy for Owen to revise the typewritten script after each day's labours, he was perpetually checked in his stride, as it were, by the necessity of repeating or explaining some incident or allusion by which Toni was frankly puzzled.

Naturally, too, the girl was nervous; and Owen's habit of striding to and fro as he dictated made things, as she said desperately to herself, far worse. In vain she quickened her pace in a wild attempt to keep up with him. Faster and faster went her pen, more and more indistinct grew the scribbled words; and in the hour of stress all ideas of spelling and punctuation took to themselves wings and fled.

But worse even than her comparative failure with the merely mechanical portion of the work was her mental inability to follow the working of Owen's mind. Handicapped by the necessity of dictating his book, the author often found himself at a standstill for some word which eluded him; and although he encouraged Toni to make suggestions, it was very seldom that she ventured to do so. The work went badly in consequence.

Owen used to think sometimes that if Toni's mind had been more attuned to his, if they had shared ideas, had held the same standard in fiction, he might have gained something from this enforced collaboration; but as things were it became an irritation, effectually stopping the flow of his ideas; and although he did his best to keep Toni in ignorance of his feelings, she was bound to realize that the work was progressing in a lame and halting fashion.