And nothing could move him from the att.i.tude he had adopted. The utmost concession Barry could wring from him was a promise to wait for a week at least before carrying out his plan; and during the whole of that week Barry did his utmost to dissuade his friend from taking a step which he foresaw would end in disaster.

He argued, cajoled, even thundered, in vain. He spoke of disparity of tastes, of habits, of views on life in general; and Owen laughingly reminded him that dissimilarity in tastes was supposed to be a good foundation for wedded happiness.

He pointed out that although Antonia herself was a lady in the best sense of the word, neither he nor Owen knew anything of her family; and he endeavoured to alarm Rose by his vigorous sketch of her possibly undesirable relations.

"I tell you the girl's an orphan," said Owen, smiling as Barry finished painting an imaginary portrait of a very unattractive mother-in-law.

"She lives with an uncle and aunt and a family of cousins somewhere Brixton way."

"Then I suppose the wedding will take place in Brixton," said Barry, with an a.s.sumption of polite interest, and Owen coloured in spite of himself.

"No--at least, not in a church. I can't face a regular wedding, Barry, seeing my bride isn't the one I expected to lead to the altar. I think the Registrar will have to tie the knot, and we'll dispense with all the fuss of satins and veils and white flowers that I was dreading with all my heart!"

Something in his tone--a hint of dreary disappointment, of a wretchedness. .h.i.therto well concealed, made Barry feel compunction for his own rough handling of what must have been in reality a sore subject; and quite suddenly he abandoned his own superior, not to say condemnatory, att.i.tude for a more human, more sympathetic frame of mind.

"I say, old chap"--Owen's eyes lightened with pleasure at the friendly tone--"I've been an awful beast all this time. The fact is, I've thought only of the girl's point of view. It didn't seem fair she should be used as a sort of tool to make your position easier; but after all, I believe on my soul she'd ask nothing better than to marry you; and I know you'd treat her decently, so--so if----"

"If I like to do it, you'll give me your blessing, eh, Barry?" Owen's smile was a little melancholy. "Well, I'll take advantage of your permission and put it to the little girl herself. She may refuse me, of course--Miss Rees didn't find me irresistible, did she?" A hint of the deadly wound she had dealt him coloured his tone. "But unless I'm a conceited fool I believe I have a sporting chance at least--and I'd like to show Lady Saxonby she's not the only woman in the world for me!"

At that moment Toni herself entered the room; and with an effort both men greeted her as usual, and proceeded to the ordinary routine of the day's work without giving her any indication that she had interrupted a discussion of the highest importance to herself.

CHAPTER VII

Antonia had just returned from lunch on the following day when Owen called her to him; and she hastened to obey the summons, still wearing her hat and coat.

"Oh, Miss Gibbs"--his tone was admirably casual. "I've been wondering whether you would mind helping me this afternoon. I want some books from my house down at Willowhurst to verify some quotations in an article I am writing for the next number of the _Bridge_."

"Yes, Mr. Rose?"

"I intended first going down in the car for them, but as it seems a pity to bring a lot of old books up to town, I thought if you would come down too, bringing the little Blick typewriter with you, I could get you to copy out the quotations I want, and I needn't take the books away."

Insensibly Toni's eyes brightened.

"Yes, Mr. Rose. I should be very pleased."

"That's right. Well, I'll go out and get some lunch. Will you be ready in half an hour?"

"Yes--I've just time to run through these letters."

"Very well. _Au revoir!_ I'll be back at half-past two."

He went out, and Antonia joyfully pirouetted round the room before settling to work--somewhat to the surprise of Barry, who entered at that moment.

"Hallo, Miss Gibbs--practising the turkey-trot, or what?"

She stopped, blushing hotly, and tried in vain to look unconcerned.

"No, Mr. Raymond. Only--Mr. Rose wants me to motor down to Willowhurst with him about some books--and it's such a lovely day!"

"You like motoring?" Barry could not resist a sympathetic smile.

"Oh, I just love it!" She clasped her hands in rapture. "Of course, I've only been in taxis and char-a-bancs and things, but I've always wanted to go in a real motor-car--a private one, I mean!"

"Have you never been in one?" Her childish confession made Barry feel half pitiful, half dismayed.

"No, how should I?" She laughed, showing her pretty teeth whole-heartedly. "You know girls in my position don't go about in motors! Of course"--with one of her sudden changes of mood she paled and spoke slowly--"if my father had lived things would have been different."

"You lived in Italy together?"

"Yes." She sank into a chair, and went on speaking dreamily, her chin cradled in her hollowed hands. "We lived in a village not far from Naples. Oh, how beautiful Italy is in the spring, when the pink almond-blossom makes the hill-sides look like a great rose-garden ... and the oranges and lemons flame out among the dark-green leaves--and the roads are hot and white, and the blue sea lies at the back of everything, sparkling in the sunshine...."

She paused, but Barry, fascinated by this revelation of a depth, almost a poetry, in the nature he had thought shallow and commonplace, said nothing; and after a second she continued.

"There was a steep hill behind our little house, and sometimes the sheep that browsed there would stray ... so that the boy would sit and pipe to them to come back. I used to watch him pipe, and make a garland of vine-leaves and put it on his curls, and my father would laugh and call him Pan, and say he was really thousands of years old ... and the sheep would come up the slope looking so white against the green, and the air would be full of the smell of the violets they crushed beneath their feet...."

Again she paused, and this time Barry prompted her.

"And when he had found his flock, what did your boy-Pan do then?"

"Then he would drive them away over the hill-side, and we would hear his pipe growing fainter and fainter in the distance, until it died away altogether...."

She sprang up suddenly.

"Oh, Mr. Raymond, what nonsense I'm talking! That life's over and done with, and I've all these letters to copy!"

"All right--I won't interrupt!" He took up some papers. "But just tell me this. Do you ever want to go back to Italy?"

She hesitated, considering.

"No, I think not," she said at last. "You see, it would all be different. My father wouldn't be there, nor the Padre--and even old Fiammetta may be dead by now."

"But the place would be the same--the sea as blue!"

"Ah, I should like to see the sea!" She spoke softly. "Do you know I've only seen the sea once since I came to England--when we went to Southend for the day. And there it was all cold and grey--and the sands were mud ... it wasn't a bit like my sea, and I wished I'd never seen it."

There were actually tears in her eyes, and Barry cursed himself for a fool, as he went rather absently into his own room, leaving her to her work--which work was done none the less carefully because of the vague longings which the conversation had aroused in the worker's breast.

Punctually at two-thirty Owen returned, and Toni ran down the steps with a smiling face from which all traces of tears had long since vanished.

The car was waiting in the dingy street, and Toni's foot was actually on the step when she turned and looked at Owen with a kind of desperate appeal in her eyes.

"Mr. Rose, do you drive the car yourself?"

"Yes. I sit in front, you know--ah, would you like to sit with me?"

"May I?" Her accent was acceptance enough; and two minutes later Toni, as happy as a queen, was installed by the driver's side, and the car began to glide faster and faster down the street on its way to the open country beyond the town.