"Of course it was. It was about the best stuff young Lewis had ever turned out--and a fool like Hart, whose taste is distinctly precious, hasn't the wit to appreciate good, clean, straightforward English. He likes a ma.s.s of involved, wordy stuff that only the high-brows can understand."

He broke off laughing.

"Well, anyway we sent for it back in double-quick time; but Lewis had taken the huff and didn't want us to have it. So Hart had to apologize--which _he_ didn't enjoy--and altogether the place was in a ferment."

"But it's all right now?"

"Yes, thank Heaven. I say, Toni; I went to see old Vincent about my arm to-day, and he says it is fairly normal again. I'll tell you a secret, shall I, Toni? As soon as the book is finished I'm going to start a play."

"Are you?" Her voice sounded cold, though it was only vague; and her unusual lack of interest rather hurt Owen.

"Oh, we'll have our holiday first," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to do you out of that. How would you like a few weeks in Switzerland--for the winter sports? We could get off in about three weeks, and stay over Christmas. Then, when we came home"--in spite of himself his tone took a new enthusiasm--"I could get to work again."

"You are going to write a play? But I didn't know you could write plays."

Her childishness jarred his nerves, already worn with the minor vexations of the day.

"Well, _I_ don't know until I try." He spoke rather curtly. "But I've talked it over with Barry, and we think it sounds possible."

"I see. And if it were a success?"

"Why, our fortune would be made." He took her arm in friendly fashion.

"Then we should have to go and live in town, Toni, take a big house and launch out. You'd like that, eh?"

"I should hate it," she said, so fervently that he dropped her arm in astonishment and turned to look at her.

"Hate it! Why?"

"I hate big houses--and entertaining--and all the rest. I--I should loathe to have to go to receptions and give big parties--I'm never any good at talking, you know yourself I look a fool when anyone tries to talk to me."

"I know you're a little silly," said Owen teasingly, "but you'll outgrow that. Here we are--come along in, Toni, it's really beginning to rain.

Come in, Jock, and let me shut the door."

Safely inside the hall, Owen turned to Toni.

"Come into the library, will you, dear? I'll send for some sandwiches and a whisky and soda, I think. I hurried over dinner and I'm hungry."

Toni gave the order at once, and then followed Owen to the library, where a cheerful fire burned, and in the mellow lamplight the room looked very stately and charming.

She sat down on the low club-fender in front of the hearth and gazed into the leaping fire in silence, while Owen opened the letters which had acc.u.mulated during the day.

For a few moments there was no sound save the crackling of paper and the soft little chatter of the fire. Then Owen crumpled up a letter he held and flung it from him with something which sounded like an oath.

Toni, roused from her reverie, turned round to face him.

"What's the matter, Owen?"

"Matter enough, I think." His face wore a frown which boded ill for someone. "Toni, what have you been saying to Miss Loder to make her write this letter?"

"Saying to Miss Loder?" Every sc.r.a.p of colour faded from her face, and Owen, watching, took her pallor for the ashy hue of guilt.

"Yes. You've said something--I don't know what--but I should like to know at once, without prevarication, just what it is."

"I've said nothing to Miss Loder." Her voice was unsteady--she too had felt her nerves jarred during this dreadful day.

"Well, you see what she says." He stooped and picked up the letter, which he handed to Toni. "Read that, and tell me what you make of it."

With fingers as cold as ice, and a memory in her heart of another letter which had brought her misery, Toni took the sheet, and read, in Miss Loder's firm, characteristic hand, the letter in which she requested to be allowed to resign her post.

"I am not taking this step without serious thought," so the letter ran, "and for some time I determined to remain with you as long as you honoured me by your acquiescence in the arrangement. But learning, as I do, from a quite indisputable source, that my presence in your house is distasteful to Mrs. Rose, I have no option but to ask you to release me from a position which is not only unpleasant but undignified. If you will be kind enough to waive the question of notice, I would prefer to terminate the engagement at once."

Here followed her signature, firm and clear as ever; and then came a postscript, surely a sign of disturbance on the part of so academic a scribe.

"I would prefer to dissever all connection with the _Bridge_ at the same time; but am willing to remain at the office until you find a suitable person for the post."

Having read the letter Toni let it fall upon her knee, while she gazed dreamily into the red heart of the fire, her brain working slowly as she tried to understand the significance of Miss Loder's epistle.

Something in her abstraction appeared to irritate Owen; for he came a step forward and spoke rather brusquely.

"Well? You've read it? What have you to say about it?"

"To say? Nothing." She lifted her eyes to his, and let them drop again, wearily, to the letter on her knee.

"Oh, come, Toni, that's nonsense." Conscious of the irritation in his tone Owen paused, then spoke more gently. "Miss Loder is not the sort of person to imagine slights--she has been out in the world too long for that. But evidently she has clearly seen your antipathetic att.i.tude towards her, and feels that in the circ.u.mstances she cannot remain."

"I have never slighted Miss Loder." Toni, frightened, sounded defiant.

"Not exactly. But you have shown _me_ very plainly that you resented her presence; and I suppose you have not been very careful to hide your--well, prejudice--from the girl herself."

"She has no right to say such things," said Toni, a warm flush creeping up beneath her ivory pallor. "I have never been rude to her, as you seem to think. I have always hated her, I admit--always, from the first time I saw her; but----"

"Ah, you acknowledge that." Owen pounced on the admission. "But why, Toni? Why should you hate the girl?"

"Why? I don't know," said Toni recklessly. "Simply because I do, I suppose--because if I knew her for a hundred years I should never do anything but hate her."

"And so, through your senseless jealousy, I'm to lose the best secretary I've ever had." Owen's tone was cold. "Really, Toni, I think you've gone a little too far this time. Quite apart from the fact that you must have behaved in a very childish and unladylike fashion to make the girl so uncomfortable, you have also done me an injury. If you didn't care for my work for its own sake--and I know neither the _Bridge_ nor my book has ever appealed to you--still I think you might have sacrificed your personal feelings just a little and considered my position in the matter."

From her lowly seat on the fender, Toni looked up at him with a strange expression in her eyes. In truth, at that moment Toni's soul was a battlefield of conflicting emotions. Anger, defiance, resentment at what she considered her husband's injustice, were mingled with a great dread of Owen's displeasure; and a wild, miserable despair at the thought of his conception of her as indifferent to his aims and ideals. At one and the same moment she longed to hurl defiance into his face, and to cast herself, weeping, into his arms. But she did neither, only looked up at him with that inscrutable expression in her eyes, waiting for him to speak.

"Now I suppose I shall have to look out for another secretary." Owen was annoyed and showed it. "Thank Heaven, the proofs are about finished, but this knocks the play on the head. I suppose I'll find someone else to help me, but the whole thing is very absurd and annoying."

Suddenly Toni's self-control, already shaken by the meeting with Dowson, deserted her completely.

She rose from her seat like a small whirlwind and confronted Owen with scarlet cheeks and blazing eyes.

"Wait a moment, Owen. Don't say any more, please. Remember there is my side of the question to be considered." She faced him bravely. "You knew from the start that I was not literary or learned--I told you before we were married that I wasn't half clever enough for you, and you said it didn't matter. Then, when I'd tried to help you and failed, you got Miss Loder here in my place. You knew I disliked her, but you didn't know what cause I had for my dislike."

Owen, silenced by her vehemence, stared at her speechlessly, and she went on hurriedly.