After all, Jim Herrick's introduction to Mrs. Rose came about in an unexpected fashion.

Although he had only seen her two or three times, Herrick felt a decided interest in Rose's young wife. From what Barry had told him he concluded that there were breakers ahead for the young couple; and since his own matrimonial misfortunes had made him very pitiful, he determined to try to hold out a helping hand to the girl should the occasion arise.

The occasion arose, indeed, almost before he expected it; but luckily Herrick was a man of action and grappled with the opportunity thus presented.

One sunny afternoon he was returning from a pull up the river in his skiff, when he saw a punt gliding towards him, the pole manipulated, rather unskilfully, it must be confessed, by the girl of whom his thoughts had been full; and he stayed in his mooring to watch her pass.

To Toni the guiding of a punt was so serious a matter that she had no eyes for anything else, and she never even saw the man in the boat. The river took rather a curve here, and Toni found it a little difficult to negotiate the bend. Becoming somewhat flurried, she directed her punt into the middle of the stream, where it hung for a moment as though undecided whether or no to swing round in the disconcerting manner peculiar to such craft; but Toni, becoming impatient, put fresh vigour into her task, and sent the punt triumphantly forward with a masterful push.

Her triumph was, however, short-lived. With the treacherous suddenness which invariably marks this catastrophe her pole snapped as she drove it downwards; the punt glided away immediately, and Toni, clinging desperately to the broken pole, went down with it into the river itself.

With an exclamation Herrick sculled his boat strongly to the spot where she had gone down, reaching it just as she came to the surface, gasping and spluttering, and with an expression of wild terror in her face.

He guessed that she could not swim, and called out to her reassuringly.

"You're all right—hang on to my boat, and I'll get you out!"

She heard him, even in the midst of her terror, and made a frantic grab at the side of the boat, only to miss by inches and go down again with an involuntary cry.

Hastily shipping his oars, Herrick bent over the boat, causing it to heel to one side rather dangerously; and when next Toni came to the surface he gripped her strongly by the shoulder, bidding her keep quite still, and then lifted her, by sheer force of muscle, into the boat, where she collapsed in a dripping little heap at his feet.

"That's all right!" He seized the oars and with a dozen vigorous strokes propelled the boat back to the landing-place, where he proceeded to tie her up, and then turned his attention to his passenger.

"Hard luck, Mrs. Rose," he said cheerily. "But there's no harm done, is there? Now you must come into the house and let me find you some dry things to put on. Don't delay—the punt will be rescued somewhere, I've no doubt, and you really must get out of those wet garments."

Shivering, dripping, and feeling more than half inclined to cry, Toni let him help her out of the boat; and seeing that she was really suffering from shock Herrick put his arm round her shoulders in fraternal fashion, and led her up the little sloping lawn on to the verandah of the bungalow.

Here Toni stopped in some embarrassment.

"I ... I don't think I can come in like this." In spite of the sun her teeth were chattering. "I—I shall spoil your carpets!"

"Oh, they're beyond spoiling," he assured her, with a laugh. "Don't worry about them! I think, though, you had better come into the kitchen, if you don't mind. There happens to be a fire there, and you can get warm."

She followed him obediently through the long window into the shabby sitting-room, which for all its shabbiness had an oddly harmonious effect; and from there he took her into the small, cosy kitchen, which was scrupulously tidy and spotlessly clean.

"Now"—he looked at her a little dubiously—"obviously, the thing to do is to get off those wet clothes, have a hot bath, and put on something dry. Well, if I bring my tub in here and fill it from the boiler, would you mind having it in the kitchen? You see, I don't want you to get cold."

"Oh, I don't think I need do that," said Toni, between laughing and crying. "If you lent me a mackintosh or a big coat I could get home quite well."

"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 glass containing some mulled wine.

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

As she took the glass 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 assured, 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 substitute 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 reassured.

"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 assured 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:

"Come, she's got one thing in her favour anyway! If she can't appreciate good literature she understands dogs—and after all they are worth more as humanizers of the race, than any amount of books."

"She's lovely, Mr. Herrick!" Toni lifted delighted eyes. "What do you call her? Something nice, I hope."

"Her name is Olga," he returned. "Not very original for a Russian dog, I confess, but she was already christened when she came to me. You like her?"

"I think she's a darling, and Olga is quite a nice name. A friend of mine at school had a dog like her, and we used to take her into Kensington Gardens for a run on Saturday afternoons. Her name was Pearl. It's a pretty name for a white wolfhound, isn't it? They're like pearls, somehow, so smooth and shining."

She was stroking the dog's satiny head as she spoke, and did not notice the change in the man's face; but when he remained silent she looked up as though to see why he did not respond.

"Oh, Mr. Herrick, what's the matter?" Toni was frightened by his pallor.

"Nothing—nothing!" He shook off his mental disturbance with a strong effort. "I ... I sometimes have a sort of pain—in my heart—but it's gone, quite gone, now."

Toni was not altogether satisfied with the explanation and asked herself remorsefully what she had said to vex him; but she could not think of anything which would be likely to give offence to her host, and decided, finally, that he had spoken truthfully.

She could not know how intimately the tragedy of Herrick's life was bound up with the thought of a string of shining pearls; and her very unconsciousness served to show the man she had spoken in all innocence.

"Your husband must be very busy with this review in hand," he said presently, remembering Barry's entreaty to him to examine the situation for himself. "Does he work at home or has he to spend much time in town?"

"Oh, he does both," she said, relieved by his return to his former manner. "He is in town to-day, but he has been at home a good deal lately."

"I see. It must be rather dull for you when he is shut up writing," he went on tentatively. "Writers and men of letters generally like to be left to themselves pretty much."

"Oh, I don't think my husband does," said Toni blithely. "I often go in and sit with him while he works, and if I promise to go to bed early he sometimes brings his papers into the drawing-room at night."

Herrick felt a sudden spasm of amusement, mingled with a distinct impulse of sympathy for the unfortunate writer.

"Oh! I should have thought it would be too disturbing to work in the room with anyone else—even one's wife," he added with a smile.

"Why should it be?" Toni opened eyes of amazement. "I sit quite still—I hardly ever speak—and Jock and I—my dog—play little games together ever so quietly."

"You don't help him in his work?"

"No." She shook her head. "I'm not clever enough for that. I do typing for him sometimes, but even then I'm not really much use."

"You are not an expert, perhaps?"

"Oh, I can use the typewriter all right—I've had heaps of practice. But when it comes to revising things, sort of making up an article out of rough notes, I'm no good. To begin with I can never understand what the things are about, and I always get quotations hopelessly mixed."

"I see." In spite of himself Herrick laughed. "You are not a great reader, then?"

"No—I hate books," she replied frankly. "Somehow it seems a waste of time to read when you can be doing nicer things. Besides, my husband doesn't like to see me reading what he calls trash, and I simply can't get through the things he gives me!"

"Well, after all life's the most interesting book of all—when one's young," he said indulgently. "But I'm afraid you'll wish you'd developed a taste for reading when you get like me, middle-aged and dull."

"But you aren't dull——" she was beginning eagerly, when a loud knock at the back door of the bungalow interrupted her sentence, and she broke off hastily.

"That'll be my messenger back," said Herrick, rising. "With garments for you, I suppose. I'll go and see."

He went out, returning presently with a neatly-strapped suit-case which he held up with a smile.

"Your maids have packed you a change of raiment," he said, "and have, moreover, sent a car for you to return in. I gather from the boy that two of your people squabbled as to which of them should have the privilege of bringing your things to you, but in the middle of the discussion the chauffeur, thinking, no doubt, that you were still wearing your wet garments, got impatient and started off without either of them!"

Toni had risen, and now stood hesitating a little with her hand on the suit-case.

"You'll like to change at once, I daresay." He spoke in a business-like tone. "Will you come into my little guest-chamber? There's a glass there, and you'll be able to dress comfortably."

She assented, and he took her into yet another of the rooms in his tiny domain, a small, bare little place which had a rather pathetically unused look about it.

Here she made a rapid toilet, finding everything she required with the exception of a hat, which had evidently been forgotten. A brush and comb had been tucked into a corner, however, and she thankfully brushed her hair and made it into two thick plaits, which for want of hair-pins she was forced to leave hanging over her shoulders.

When she sallied forth once more she found Herrick waiting for her with a tiny tea-tray.

"You must have a cup of tea before you go." He poured it out as he spoke. "And a biscuit—one of Mrs. Swastika's specialities. She's an excellent cook, and proud of her cakes, so do try one—to please me—and her!"

Toni drank the tea gratefully and found both it and the little cakes delicious. The next thing to do was to collect her soaked clothes, and in spite of Herrick's protests that Mrs. Swastika would see to their safe return she crammed them ruthlessly into the suit-case before going out to the waiting motor.

As she shook hands with Herrick, after thanking him very prettily for his kindness, Toni ventured a shy invitation.

"Will you come to see us at Greenriver, Mr. Herrick? I'm sure my husband will wish to thank you for fishing me out of the river."

"Thanks," he said quietly. "I will certainly come. It will give me great pleasure to meet Mr. Rose."

He tucked her into the car, shook hands again, and then stood bare-headed in the sunshine watching the motor spin round the white and dusty road.

At the bend Toni turned and waved her hand to him gaily, and he responded with a smile, which faded as the car vanished from sight.

Somehow his meeting with the girl had saddened him oddly. There was something rather pathetic about Toni at this moment of her existence, though it would have been hard to say exactly wherein the pathos lay. In spite of himself Herrick was haunted by the little picture she had drawn of her life with Owen Rose. He could fancy the two sitting together at night in the lamp-lit drawing-room, the man writing, or trying to write, as though alone, the young wife sitting silently by doing nothing, or playing quiet little games with her dog to relieve the monotony of an evening uncheered by any interesting book or engrossing study.

A worker himself, Herrick knew very well the deadening influence exerted by an unoccupied companion during working hours; and the fact that Toni did not care for books, and confessed to non-comprehension of her husband's work, struck Herrick as unfortunate, to say the least.

To this man, forced by circumstance into a more or less secluded state of life, Toni's lack of social experience weighed very lightly. She had not, perhaps, the manner or style of the girls one met in Mayfair or Belgravia, but she was simple and natural and unaffected; and Herrick found himself hoping that Mr. Rose knew how to value the traits of simplicity and straightforwardness at their true worth.

Then it was possible that the marriage might be a success in spite of the evident disparity of tastes between the two; but remembering Barry's gloomy forebodings, Herrick was bound to admit that the prospect of happiness seemed rather doubtful.

At present, however, he could do nothing; and with a resolve to call at Greenriver at the first available opportunity he went back into his little bungalow, which seemed strangely lonely as the twilight fell over the river-banks.