Have I neglected you lately? I'm sorry if I have--when the book's out we will have a trip abroad, go on the Riviera or somewhere nice and warm."

He stooped, and kissed her, but though she lifted her face obediently and even returned his caress, Toni's lips were cold and her eyes had lost their sparkle.

Owen's inflexibility frightened her. She had half expected that when he knew her real and vital dislike for Miss Loder he would promise to send her away; but he had done nothing of the kind: and Toni felt again, as she had already felt once or twice of late, that Owen had no intention of giving in to his wife's fancies, as some men were always ready to do.

She had intended to offer to give up Eva Herrick's friendship if Owen would send away Miss Loder. In the quiet hours of the night such a bargain had seemed simple enough; but when it came to making the suggestion Toni's heart failed her.

"Are you going motoring to-day, Toni?"

"I had thought of it," she said slowly; "but--do you want the car?"

"No, thanks, dear. I'm going up to town by the twelve-thirty--I promised to meet Barry for lunch. Shall you be in?"

"No. I thought of lunching out," said Toni rather vaguely.

"Oh. Well, you'll order Miss Loder's lunch then, won't you? She must have it alone to-day."

Owen, occupied with a letter he held in his hand, had spoken thoughtlessly; but an exclamation from Toni made him pause and regard his wife in amazement. Toni's pallor had given way to a deep flush, and her usually sweet eyes blazed with rage.

"Oh, I'll order Miss Loder's lunch." She spoke in sharp staccato tones.

"You needn't be afraid I will neglect her because you're away. I _can_ keep house, if I'm not a B.A.; and thank Heaven I shan't have to sit at the table and listen to her sneering at me all the time."

"Toni!" In Owen's eyes a flame similar to that in her own had sprung to life. "What do you mean by this nonsense about Miss Loder? Let me tell you once and for all that I won't have it. You never cease libelling that unfortunate woman from morning to night. Considering she is here, in your house, in a subordinate position, your behaviour is both unladylike and ungenerous; and if you continue to talk in this way about a girl who has to earn her own living, and has never done you any harm--well, we shall quarrel, that's all."

"I don't care if we do." Toni's hot temper--a heritage from her Italian mother--was let loose. "I'd sooner quarrel than submit to everything you like to do. If you loved me, treated me as you ought to treat your wife, you'd send her away. Oh, I'm not jealous in a silly way--I know you aren't likely to make love to her----"

"_Toni!_" Owen's voice frightened her into silence. "Don't dare to put such a vulgar insinuation into words, if you please. If you are so lost to your own dignity and self-respect as your anger seems to imply, at least remember that you are my wife, and don't let me hear such a thoroughly degrading and unworthy remark from you again."

"I _didn't_!" Toni, crimson-faced, had tears in her eyes. "I said I didn't think it. It's not fair of you to pretend I did.... I only meant----"

"I'm afraid you don't know what you do mean," said Owen, his anger dying down at the sight of her tears. "But in any case we had better drop the subject."

He paused for a moment, then something in Toni's forlorn aspect touched his heart and he spoke more kindly.

"Come, Toni, don't let's make a scene over this. You're my wife, you know--I didn't marry you because I wanted a secretary, I married you because I wanted you for my wife----"

"Even though you didn't love me." Toni spoke quietly, even a little sadly, and Owen's heart sank as he realized what her words implied.

"I didn't love you?" For the life of him he did not know what to say.

"No. I thought you did--but it doesn't matter," said Toni a little drearily. "I'm sorry I made a scene just now, Owen. Please forgive me. I won't do it again."

And without waiting for a reply she opened the door and went out of the room, leaving Owen staring after her, stirred to the depths of his soul by something he thought he had read in her usually child-like eyes.

It was no child who had gazed at him as she spoke those last few words.

It was a woman who had looked through Toni's Southern eyes in that moment of stress; and for the first time since his marriage, Owen wondered whether his estimate of Toni had been incorrect after all.

He had thought her soulless, a pretty, light-hearted, unselfish little comrade, swayed by feminine whims and caprices, but incapable of rising to the stature of the perfect woman; and lo, in one moment of unconscious revelation she had shown herself to him as a woman indeed, one who had realized that he had married her for some other cause than love, yet did not stoop to blame him.

But if Toni were indeed a woman, one capable, moreover, of a totally unexpected magnanimity, he had indeed been guilty of a serious mistake, and the very idea that he had misread Toni's character so hopelessly filled Owen with a humility as disturbing as it was complete.

CHAPTER XXI

The immediate effect of the little scene at the breakfast table was unfortunately that of an increased intimacy between Toni Rose and Herrick's wife.

Although Toni's exit from the battlefield had been quiet and even dignified, she found it hard to forgive Owen's plain-speaking on the subject of what he supposed to be her silly prejudice against Miss Loder. He had called her conduct vulgar and ungenerous, had spoken, moreover, in the tone in which a harsh schoolmaster might censure a naughty child; and all her love for Owen could not prevent a feeling of humiliation which galled her sorely.

The sight of Miss Loder, trim, competent, complacent, acted upon Toni's nerves in much the same way as the red rag is said to act on the nervous system of a bull. Although she dared not give vent openly to her dislike, Toni's behaviour towards her husband's secretary was by no means cordial; and Owen felt a slightly bitter resentment against his young wife for what he considered her most unreasonable inability to understand his position.

Millicent Loder was a G.o.d-send to a hara.s.sed literary man; and yet Owen began to wonder whether after this book were done it would be advisable to dispense with her services. That, however, seemed unfair to the girl, who liked her work with him, and would consider her dismissal uncalled for; and Owen generally finished his mental discussion with a resolution to ignore Toni's foolishness and trust to time to teach her toleration.

It must be remembered that neither Toni nor her husband had the slightest notion of what lay beneath Miss Loder's calm exterior. Envy of Toni as Rose's wife, scorn of her as the mistress of a beautiful and stately house, mingled in Millicent's breast with a strong and unreasonable longing to attract Toni's husband to herself; and the very fact that the marriage of these two was not what she called a success, lent additional keenness to all her emotions.

Oddly enough, Mrs. Herrick saw Millicent in something very like her true light, with a vision even clearer than that of the more interested Toni; and Eva Herrick, who since her imprisonment hated all men and most women, was not ill-pleased by the spectacle of Toni's dislike for her husband's secretary.

Very adroitly Eva set herself to foster that dislike. Although she had only encountered Miss Loder twice--once on the occasion of a call paid in return for Toni's ceremonious call upon her, and again during a wait at the station for the London train, Mrs. Herrick had quickly realized that Miss Loder liked Toni little better than Toni cared for her; and Eva was not the sort of woman to let any knowledge of that kind lie useless.

Without saying anything definite, she contrived to let Toni know she sympathized with her in the matter of Miss Loder's tenancy of the library; and although Toni never let slip a word which might have savoured of disloyalty to her husband, Mrs. Herrick knew, with a queer, uncanny shrewdness peculiar to her, that the girl's marriage was not altogether happy.

If it had been, it is improbable that Eva would have made a friend of Toni. As she said to herself now and again, she had no use for happy people. Her own life was spoilt--that the spoiling was due to herself she would have been the last to acknowledge--and she was in no humour to watch other people making a success of their lives. What she wanted was to see those around her as unhappy, as disillusioned, as discontented as herself; and all Toni's kindness, all her gentle, unselfish friendliness, went for nothing when the opportunity arose for a further darkening of Toni's already overshadowed sky.

On the surface, however, all was serenity. Eva accepted Toni's companionship with outward grat.i.tude, and when once Herrick was satisfied that Toni knew what she was doing, he put no obstacles in the way of their better acquaintance.

Afterwards he told himself that he should have known better than to allow his wife to take advantage of Toni's unworldliness; but at the moment he was only too glad to find Eva apparently sincere in her liking for the simple-hearted Toni; and a.s.suming, naturally, that Owen did not disapprove of the growing intimacy, he watched the affair with a grat.i.tude made natural by his intense pity for his wife.

One day Mrs. Herrick asked Toni to accompany her to Sutton, where she had made an appointment for twelve o'clock. It appeared that she had suffered agonies of toothache while in prison, and although the authorities had done all they could for her, she was again in urgent need of a dentist's services. She had been informed of the arrival of a new pract.i.tioner in the little town, who came from a London practice; and to Toni's mingled surprise and dismay she found herself invited to accompany Mrs. Herrick on a visit to Mr. Dowson's surgery.

On the spur of the moment she confessed to a previous acquaintance with Mr. Dowson; and Eva thereupon plied her with questions as to his proficiency in his work.

"I don't want my teeth breaking or my jaw dislocating," she said. "Do you think the man's any good? It's such a bore to have to go up to town every time. Has he ever done any work for you?"

Toni, who had never had toothache in her life, was obliged to reply in the negative; but a.s.sured Eva that Mr. Dowson had an excellent reputation in Brixton.

"Well, I wrote and fixed up an appointment with him," said Eva carelessly, "so I suppose I'd better go. But if he isn't any good I shan't go again."

"I'll run you over in the car," said Toni eagerly, "and we'll go on to lunch somewhere. Miss Loder leaves early to-day, so it doesn't matter about my not being at home."

Mrs. Herrick accepted the offer promptly, and at five minutes past twelve the big car pulled up in front of Mr. Dowson's modest house, much to the excitement of the school children, who were at that moment released from the school-buildings at the end of the street.

A quiet little maid showed the visitors into the usual depressing waiting-room; and reappeared two minutes later to conduct them into the torture chamber itself; and since Eva flatly refused to go alone, Toni perforce accompanied her into the operator's presence.

Mr. Dowson's pale face lighted up at the sight of Toni with a radiance which even the self-engrossed Eva could not fail to note. He recollected himself sufficiently to shake hands professionally with his patient, but Toni he greeted warmly, as an old friend.

He had never dreamed of such a glorious happening as this visit. The dingy room was transfigured by Toni's presence therein; and his long, white, carefully-manicured hands were absolutely unsteady as he opened his little cabinet and selected one or two tiny but deadly-looking instruments from the shining rows within.