Owen and his wife were sitting at dinner one evening when a note was brought to Owen whose contents brought an angry exclamation to his lips as he, read.

"By gad, Toni, this is a bit thick! What the devil does the woman mean?"

Toni, suddenly pale, bit her lips, while her eyes filled with apprehension.

"I ... who is it from, Owen? What does it say?"

"There—read it yourself," said Owen, throwing the blue-grey sheet across the table. "I suppose there is some explanation, though I confess I can't understand it—yet."

Still deadly pale, her eyes shining like blue jewels, Toni took up the sheet and read the letter which Lady Martin had written with so much satisfaction a couple of hours earlier.

Toni laid the paper quietly down on the table and spoke to Owen with a mingling of terror and defiance in her tone.

"Well?"

"Well?" Owen reached across the table and picked up the letter. "What is all this about, Toni? Why should you be requested to resign?"

"I don't know"—Toni began in a lifeless voice; then suddenly—"yes, I do know. It's all a plot of Lady Martin's and Mrs. Madgwick's. They hate me, I always told you so—and now they want to make you hate me too."

"But what happened this afternoon?"

"Oh, it's a long story." Toni spoke recklessly. "To begin with, I was elected to the Club a long time ago—in September; and when Mrs. Herrick came home she wanted to be a member too. I tried to get her in, but they didn't want her——"

"Of course not." Owen frowned. "You never seem to understand, Toni, that all people are not so unworldly as you. It was a mistake for Mrs. Herrick to attempt to enter a private club of that sort so soon. She should have waited until the scandal had blown over."

"Well, she was very disappointed about it. But every member can take a friend in once a month, so I took Eva this afternoon."

She broke off in dismay.

"Oh, Toni, will you never learn sense?" In spite of himself Owen spoke sharply. "Of all the foolish things to do! Well, what happened when you got there?"

"People weren't very nice." Toni flushed again at the memory of the whispers and averted faces which had greeted her entrance with Mrs. Herrick. "But we just sat down and watched, and everything would have been all right if Lady Martin hadn't interfered."

"What did she do?"

"She had a woman with her—Lady Saxonby, someone called her—and she heard me addressed as Mrs. Rose, and turned to me at once and asked me if I were your wife."

"She did? By Jove!" Owen guessed that Vivian's curiosity had nerved her to the step.

"Yes. So I said I was, and she was beginning to talk to me—quite politely—but somehow as if she were taking me in all the time——"

Owen could well imagine how Lady Saxonby's eyes would scrutinize the face of the girl with whom he had consoled himself after her defection; and he felt both anger and surprise at the thought of the scrutiny.

"Well, go on." Insensibly his tone had hardened, and Toni hurried on.

"Well, as she was talking to me, Lady Martin came up and tried to draw her away, but she wouldn't go. So Lady Martin got vexed, I suppose, and she bent down and whispered something to her—something about Eva, because I heard the words 'necklace' and 'prison' quite plainly, and Eva heard it too and turned crimson."

"And then?"

"Then Lady Saxonby looked straight at me and asked me to give you a message."

"Did she?" Owen was astonished. "What was it?"

"She asked me to say that she hoped you had forgiven her and were as happy as she is."

"Gad, what impertinence!" He flushed darkly. "She had no right to send me such a message; it was nothing but a piece of unwarranted presumption on her part."

"Was it?" Toni spoke rather wistfully. "You see, I didn't know at first who she was, and I thought she meant to be quite decent. But then Eva jumped up and said very quickly that the woman who had jilted an honourable man ought to be ashamed of sending such a message through that man's wife—and when I said something she told me that Lady Saxonby was the woman who threw you over when you came home, for all the world to see."

Owen, vexed to the soul by the thought of this miserable publicity, set his teeth hard and said nothing; and Toni hurried on.

"Well, then there was a scene. Lady Saxonby turned on Eva quite furiously, and said she had no right to talk of anyone being ashamed of anything, seeing that everyone knew what she had done. And then all the other women crowded round, and Eva lost her temper, and said it was quite true and she had been in prison and was a criminal and all that, but she'd sooner be that than a dishonourable, mercenary woman who would jilt one man because another had more money and a title ... and ... oh, there was a most frightful row, and the end was that the secretary hurried up and asked me to take Eva away quickly before she said any more. She was awfully cross, and said I ought not to have brought Mrs. Herrick, and that Lady Saxonby would be sure to talk, and the Club would be ruined."

"So you came away?"

"Yes. Eva was horribly upset—you know her nerves are all wrong—and she fainted dead away in the hall and they had to send for a doctor and we took her home ... and altogether," said Toni, breaking at last into tears, "it was a fearful scene, and I wish I'd never gone near the Club!"

"I wish to God you hadn't!" Owen sprang up, more upset than he cared to confess. He could visualize the whole scene: Vivian, with her beautiful, scornful face, taunting Eva, playing the hypocrite with Toni, and sending insulting messages to the man she had jilted; and the mere thought of the talk, the gossip, the raking up of old stories which would inevitably follow, set all his nerves jarring furiously.

Even the sight of Toni's tears did not soften his heart. Rather he felt exasperated with her, since it was her folly which had precipitated the whole scene.

"Come, don't cry," he said rather curtly. "You've done a very silly thing, and goodness knows where it will end; but it's no use crying and making yourself ill."

Naturally his tone did not tend to set his wife at ease; and she cried the more.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, stop!" Owen felt himself to be a brute, but the thought of Vivian's malice was gall to his spirit. "The mischief's done, and crying won't undo it. But I hope you've learned a lesson, Toni; I always told you it was a mistake to go about with that woman, and you wouldn't believe me. Well, now you see what's happened. You've made us both ridiculous in the eyes of the world, and we shall be more severely ostracized than ever."

Suddenly Toni's tears ceased and she raised her head to stare at him.

"You mean people will be horrid—to you—about it?"

"Well, naturally, they'll think me a fool for encouraging you," said Owen rather irritably. "If only you would have been guided by me! But it's been the same all through. You chose to go your own way, and the end will be that we shall have to leave Greenriver and go to live somewhere else."

"Leave Greenriver?" She echoed the words dully.

"Well, what can we do?" He spoke impatiently. "You have never seemed very happy here, so far as the people go. And now, after this fiasco, we may expect the neighbourhood to drop us altogether."

"Drop us?"

"Well, you know what I mean. Oh, I don't care two straws about the people themselves. They're a stupid lot anyway, and too conventional to know how to got the best out of life. But still—Greenriver's my home, and I thought we should learn to settle down here."

"And I've prevented you?"

"Well, you've never hit it off with the people, have you? And after this I don't see how we can settle down. I'm not going to have people neglecting my wife or being rude to her, but still this Badminton Club affair is a pretty big slap in the face for both of us."

Toni, resting her small chin on the cup of her hollowed hands, stared at him thoughtfully, and in her eyes, still wet with tears, he caught again that elusive hint of a tragic womanhood which had puzzled him on a former occasion.

"Eva was right," she said, and her voice was low. "She said I was out of place here, and so I am."

"Mrs. Herrick said that?" Owen's anger suddenly swung round. "Then it was a damned silly thing to say, and I'm surprised you listened to it."

"But she was right. She said everyone wondered why you married me; and now that I have seen Lady Saxonby, I wonder too."

Owen's heart sank.

"Toni, what do you mean?"

"I mean that I understand now. Lady Saxonby was the woman you were to have married. She is very beautiful," said Toni simply. "And she would have been the right mistress for Greenriver. I can't understand how it was you married me. Eva said—when we were driving home—that it must have been pique. She said you wanted to show the other woman you did not care ... and when I thought about it, I saw that it was true."

"Toni, it wasn't true." All thought of personal anger was swallowed up in Owen's sudden longing to convince the girl that Eva had lied. "I married you because"—in spite of himself he faltered—"because I loved you. What if Vivian did treat me badly? I was well out of it, since she was a woman of that kind."

"Oh, I don't mind—now," said Toni, with a faint smile. "I did at first. When Lady Martin and Mrs. Madgwick said it, last summer, I thought my heart would break; but I suppose I got used to the idea, and when I saw Lady Saxonby to-day I knew it was just one of the things that no one can help."

Owen, not understanding her, only stared.

"You see, I knew all the time it wasn't likely, really, that you would care for me," said Toni quietly. "I tried to make myself believe you did, but I don't think I ever really believed it. Only I was so fond of you—you were so kind—and when we were married you were so good to me that I began to hope you might grow fond of me in time."

"Toni—for God's sake——"

"But I soon found out it was a mistake—our marriage—for you. I wasn't half clever enough. I was only an ignorant, silly, unformed girl, and you were so different. Oh, I tried my hardest to improve. I wanted to prove to you that I wasn't quite such a little fool as you thought me. I wanted to show you I had a soul—Mr. Herrick said I had, and I tried to make myself more companionable to you—oh, I know I didn't succeed very well," said Toni humbly, "but, you see, you didn't understand. I only bothered you when I tried to help you in your work; and of course you didn't want to talk to me about the things that really mattered to you."

"Toni—Toni—don't say such things."

"But you were always kind," said Toni wistfully, "and I sometimes wondered if I had been wrong and you did care for me a little. But I always knew, deep down in my heart, that it was all a mistake, and now"—suddenly the composure which had supported her so far gave way—"now I know I ought not to have married you—and—and I'm sorry, Owen—I'm most frightfully sorry——"

All at once she pressed her hands to her eyes as though to shut out the sight of his face; and then, as he started forward, vague words of comfort on his lips, she flung her arms out over the table and laid her head down on them in an attitude of utter desolation.

For a moment Owen stood motionless, while the light from the rose-shaded candles played over the silky black hair and cast a pool of red colour on the smooth white neck rising out of its chiffon draperies. The scene was one which would never fade from Owen's memory; and in after days he could visualize it to the minutest detail.

The red and yellow of the chrysanthemums in a big silver bowl, the purple bloom of the piled-up grapes before Toni, the ruby of the wine in the decanters, the reflections cast by the candles in the shining surface of the uncovered table, the ruddy glow of the firelight playing over Toni's pale-coloured skirts—to the day of his death Owen would be able to recall the scene at will: and never would he forget the chill in his veins as he realized that the girl he had thought a child was a woman after all....

"Toni—Toni dear." He laid his hand on her shoulder. "For heaven's sake, Toni, look up and tell me you don't mean all the terrible things you've been saying. Of course I love you. Why, haven't I shown you that all along? Toni, don't let those silly women and their chatter hurt you. You can believe me, can't you? And I tell you I married you because I loved you—and Lady Saxonby and all the rest can go to Jericho!"

He half thought he had won her ear; in another moment he felt sure he would have had her in his arms, sobbing her heart out—since she must cry—in the safe shelter of his breast; but at that moment the young butler, deceived by the low voices into thinking the room empty, entered briskly to fulfil his duties; and Toni sprang up before Andrews had time to advance round the big screen, which fortunately hid her from his eyes.

Owen swore softly under his breath at this most untimely interruption; but Toni was already half-way to the door, and he judged it best to engage Andrews in conversation about the wine and leave Toni to seek the sanctuary she desired.

The next day the Secretary of the Badminton Club received Mrs. Rose's resignation; and there, for the present, the matter ended.