"Toni, do you think it quite wise to go about so much with Mrs. Herrick?"

It was Owen who asked the question one cold morning as the two sat at breakfast; and Toni looked up with something like defiance in her bright eyes.

"Why not, Owen? Oh, I know she has been—well, you know where—but she is free again now; and it is very hard if one mistake is to dog her footsteps wherever she goes for the rest of her life."

"It was a pretty serious mistake," Owen reminded her quietly, "and to tell you the truth I hardly like you to go about so constantly with a woman who did what she was proved to have done."

"Oh, don't be such a Pharisee, Owen." Toni spoke sharply and Owen glanced at her in dismay. "I suppose someone has been saying something to you. But I don't intend to give up Eva Herrick to please a lot of spiteful old women like Lady Martin and Mrs. Madgwick."

"Certainly one or two people have commented on your friendship," said Owen thoughtfully, "and I'm bound to say I don't like it myself. To begin with Mrs. Herrick treats her husband abominably; and I should not have thought you would have been attracted by her shallow, futile way of talking."

"You forget I'm shallow and futile myself," said Toni with a faint, bitter smile. "The gossips of the neighbourhood have long since decided that I was an ignorant little fool who wasn't fit to be the mistress of Greenriver; and I suppose it's a case of birds of a feather, isn't it?"

"Toni!" Owen's voice expressed bewilderment. "What on earth do you mean? Who ever dared to say you weren't fit to be mistress of Greenriver?"

"Oh, heaps of people," said Toni recklessly. "You know quite well you were ashamed of me when we first went out to dinner parties here, and I didn't know how to behave—and lately we have been invited nowhere—not even to the Golf Club Ball."

Owen bit his lip. In truth the matter of the ball had puzzled him considerably. Although not a golfer, he was on friendly terms with many of the members of the local Club; and since Toni's friends, Mollie and Cynthia Teach, were ardent golfers, it had seemed most probable that Owen and his wife would receive an invitation to the annual ball.

The Tobies had indeed gone so far as to assure Toni of her invitation when first the ball was mentioned; and though as the day grew near the two girls grew uneasy when the topic was broached, Toni never dreamed that their avoidance of the subject covered a real and distressing awkwardness.

Certainly neither Toni nor Owen imagined that they had been quietly excluded from the list of guests; but such was the astounding fact, as Mollie and Cynthia were guiltily aware.

It was largely due to Lady Martin's plain-speaking that this came about.

Somehow the real truth about Eva Herrick had leaked out; as such truths do invariably leak out; and Toni's ill-advised friendship with Herrick's wife was easily turned to her disadvantage by so skilful an adversary as Lady Martin.

From the first her ladyship had been unable to bring herself to tolerate Toni; and had lost no opportunity of spreading abroad Toni's rash admission as to the nature of her cousin's employment—with the immediate result that in a good many people's eyes Toni herself was looked upon as an unusually fortunate shop-girl raised by a stroke of good luck to a position which she was quite unsuited to adorn.

Possibly there was in the case of some of her detractors an element of jealousy in their comments on Owen Rose's wife. There were a good many houses along the river where daughters were at a discount; and to see an unknown and attractive girl like Toni step into the place which many of these girls would have dearly liked to fill was doubtless somewhat galling.

At any rate Lady Martin found plenty of supporters when she broached her avowed intention of excluding Mrs. Rose from the ball of which she was patroness, on the ground of her friendship with the woman who had been, as they all knew, in prison for a serious offence; and so it happened that when the ball took place neither Owen nor Toni contributed by their presence to the success of the evening.

It was perfectly true that Toni had struck up a friendship with Jim Herrick's wife; and it is only fair to Toni to state that in the first instance she had made overtures to Eva Herrick from a purely good-hearted desire to return Herrick's kindness to her in the one way possible.

She was not, in truth, greatly attracted to Eva at first. She found her hard, bitter, at times ungenerous; but Mrs. Herrick was clever enough to see that such attributes failed to endear her to Toni; and since to Eva's perverted mind her husband's companionship was unendurable, she quickly determined to make a friend of this soft-hearted, unworldly little girl who was evidently sorry for her in her wordless fashion; and was too candid herself to suspect deceit or double-dealing in others.

Eva knew very well that the neighbourhood, which prided itself on its exclusiveness, would have little or nothing to do with her; and motor rides with Toni in the luxurious grey car, with lunch or tea at some riverside hotel, formed an agreeable method of passing the days which were otherwise horribly long and empty.

"I wasn't thinking of the Golf Ball," Owen said, in reply to Toni's last speech. "But honestly, Toni, I don't care for Mrs. Herrick. Oh, I'm not talking now of the necklace affair. That's over and done with; but it's the woman herself I don't approve of."

"Why not?" She spoke abruptly and Owen frowned.

"Well, she's not the sort of girl I like my wife to be intimate with. I'm sorry for that poor fellow Herrick. He is a sensible man, and knows that if his wife's past is to be forgotten it will be by living quietly and decently, and not by pushing into the society of the neighbourhood whether she is welcome or no."

"Owen, you're perfectly hateful." Toni was really angry. "She is always welcome here, anyway. You know quite well that no one round about really likes me. Oh, they call and all that sort of thing; but no one is really friendly to me, and all the time they are saying horrid things about me behind my back."

"I think you are talking nonsense, dear," said Owen quietly. "No one says horrid things. To begin with, what should they say?"

"They say I'm common and ignorant, and so I am," said Toni passionately, with a sudden desire to blurt out the conversation she had overheard on that miserable day in August. "Mrs. Madgwick says so, and Lady Martin. I heard them—and lots of other people say so too. I thought it wasn't true at first—and then I saw it was. I asked Mr. Herrick, and he told me to read and educate myself and then I could be useful to you—and instead of that you went and got that perfectly hateful Miss Loder, and everyone knows it was because you were sick of me trying to help you and doing it so badly."

Owen's face as he listened to this speech was a study in bewilderment. The introduction of Herrick's name puzzled him considerably; and although he frowned at Toni's description of Miss Loder, he realized that by some means Toni had been made unhappy over her own position as his wife.

"See here, Toni, I don't quite understand." He looked at her keenly. "Who says you are ignorant—and all the rest? And what on earth has Herrick to do with our affairs?"

"I told him—he saw me crying and asked me why. It was at the Vicarage Bazaar—I was sitting in a summer-house and Lady Martin and Mrs. Madgwick were outside, and they began to talk about me and they said all those horrible things——"

"Toni, were you obliged to listen? Couldn't you have got away!"

"No." She lifted her clear eyes to his and he repented his question. "I couldn't come out when they had begun; and I didn't know at first that they were talking secrets."

Her childish phraseology made Owen smile in the midst of his annoyance.

"So Mr. Herrick advised you to read? Well, Toni, that was good advice."

"Yes—and I took it," she said eagerly. "I read heaps and heaps of dull books and worked at French—and poetry—and then when I tried to help you, you wouldn't let me. You brought that horrid Loder here instead."

Her reiteration of Miss Loder's name jarred. Owen had been genuinely surprised and interested by this revelation, and if Toni had been wise enough to stick to her own side of the affair, it is probable she would have captured Owen's sympathy, and, incidentally, his heart; but she weakened her case by her senseless prejudice against Millicent Loder; and with a quick sense of irritation Owen told himself that she was only jealous—in a purely unsentimental way—after all.

She had never liked being ousted from her position, as would-be helper; but Owen knew—or fancied he did—the exact value of her aid; and after all his work was too important for him to run the risk of spoiling it by any lack of efficiency in his helpers.

"I wish you'd leave Miss Loder's name out of the question," he said at last, and his tone struck coldly on Toni's excited ear. "When the book is published I will dispense with her assistance, if you wish it; but until then I tell you frankly I intend to avail myself of her most valuable help."

He had expected an angry reply; but none came. Instead Toni said in a low voice:

"Very well, Owen. I know Miss Loder is useful to you and I am not. But if you refuse to let me help you, I don't think you can complain if I try to fill my time with other things—and if Mrs. Herrick is pleasant and nice to me I cannot very well refuse to know her, can I?"

"To know her? Certainly not—but there is a difference between knowing her casually and being with her all day long."

"I am not that," she replied quietly. "I take her motoring sometimes, because it is dull going alone, and it is a treat to her. But of course if you object—it is your car——"

"Oh, don't be silly, Toni." All Owen's pent-up irritation found vent in the words. "I'm not a dragon—or an ogre, am I? Take Mrs. Herrick by all means—have her here if you like, only for goodness' sake don't talk as though I wished to condemn you to perpetual loneliness."

"Very well. I won't." She rose as she spoke. "You've finished, haven't you? Then I'll go and see Mrs. Blades—she is ill again to-day, Kate says."

"Is she? Poor old soul." Owen rose too, and passing round the table laid his hands on Toni's shoulders. "Toni, we're not quarrelling, are we? 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.