"Toni, I have a proposal to make. Suppose you stop typing for a little
while and listen to me. Will you, dear?"
Toni, all the colour slipping out of her face, put down the sheet she
had just taken up and waited obediently to hear Owen's proposal.
This was the ninth day of their mutual labour; and even Toni's optimism
could not assert that the experience had been successful.
She had tried so hard, poor Toni. With every nerve strained to the
utmost, with her mind emptied of anything which did not bear upon the
subject in hand, she had striven to help Owen, to take down from
dictation the words, the sentences, in which his thoughts were clothed.
She had learned not to look up expectantly at every pause, since she had
realized that to the harassed author, struggling for the one right
phrase, that bright expectancy exercised a deadening effect; and she
never even raised her head when silence fell--the silence in which Owen
weighed and sifted his material, selecting this, rejecting that, and
embodying the result in just the one glowing, clean-cut sentence which
would effectually tell.
But Toni found herself, all unwillingly, handicapped, by her
non-comprehension both of the matter and method of Owen's creative work.
A plain, straightforward story Toni could assimilate easily enough.
Something primitive in her responded, also, to the call of the
world-wide emotions of love, hatred, revenge; but Owen's book dealt with
none of these; and the subtle philosophy, the carefully interwoven
motives of political expediency and half-reluctant patriotism were alike
uninteresting and unintelligible.
Where she did not understand, it was natural she should transcribe
incorrectly; and although it was easy for Owen to revise the typewritten
script after each day's labours, he was perpetually checked in his
stride, as it were, by the necessity of repeating or explaining some
incident or allusion by which Toni was frankly puzzled.
Naturally, too, the girl was nervous; and Owen's habit of striding to
and fro as he dictated made things, as she said desperately to herself,
far worse. In vain she quickened her pace in a wild attempt to keep up
with him. Faster and faster went her pen, more and more indistinct grew
the scribbled words; and in the hour of stress all ideas of spelling and
punctuation took to themselves wings and fled.
But worse even than her comparative failure with the merely mechanical
portion of the work was her mental inability to follow the working of
Owen's mind. Handicapped by the necessity of dictating his book, the
author often found himself at a standstill for some word which eluded
him; and although he encouraged Toni to make suggestions, it was very
seldom that she ventured to do so. The work went badly in consequence.
Owen used to think sometimes that if Toni's mind had been more attuned
to his, if they had shared ideas, had held the same standard in fiction,
he might have gained something from this enforced collaboration; but as
things were it became an irritation, effectually stopping the flow of
his ideas; and although he did his best to keep Toni in ignorance of his
feelings, she was bound to realize that the work was progressing in a
lame and halting fashion.
Therefore she was not surprised when Owen broke it to her, gently, that
he was thinking of a change of secretary.
"You see, dear,"--he spoke very kindly, feeling indeed very pitiful
towards the girl, whose fluctuating colour showed her mental
disturbance--"this sort of work demands a special training. You are
doing your best, I know, and I am very grateful to you, but you can see,
can't you, that I am getting on badly?"
"Yes, Owen." She spoke very slowly, and for a moment Owen wondered
whether it would be possible to continue the present arrangement. Then
common sense and creative ardour combined to utter a decided negative,
and feeling himself to be brutal he hurried on.
"Unfortunately I shan't be able to use my arm for some weeks. That
stupid old doctor ought to pay my secretary's fees, oughtn't he, since
he's responsible for my helplessness!"
He laughed; but Toni said nothing, and after waiting a second he
continued:
"You've been most awfully good and patient, dear, and I'm afraid I've
been horribly irritable over the job. But I don't think it's any good
our going on. I'm wearing you out, and losing a lot of time into the
bargain."
"You are going on with the book?"
"Of course, yes." His matter-of-fact assent caused poor Toni a pang.
"But I think I shall have to borrow Miss Loder from the office for a few
weeks. She is used to the job, you know. She told me she had once taken
down an eighty-thousand-word book, typed it, and seen it through the
press, because the author was nearly blind. So she would really know all
about the work."
"Yes." Toni wondered, dully, why the sunshine which poured over her held
no warmth to-day.
"Well, I'll drop a line to Barry and ask him if he can spare her for a
bit. There's a rather smart typist in one of the other rooms could take
her place, and I might not want her for very long. As far as the book
itself is concerned, I can't work fast enough to get it all done."
"Yes." Sitting there, repeating the word, parrot-wise, Toni looked very
forlorn; and something in her attitude struck Owen with a perhaps
exaggerated feeling of remorse.
"Well, that's settled," he said cheerfully, "and after this you needn't
lose your roses sitting indoors so much. I'll tell you what--let's have
a day off, shall we?"
She nodded, hoping he would not see the tears in her eyes.
"Right. We'll have the car--Fletcher will have to drive--and go for a
good long run into the country. We'll have lunch out and get back for
dinner. You'll like that?"
"Very much." She rose. "I'll go and get ready, shall I?"
"Yes. We'll start at once. By Jove, I shall enjoy a holiday myself!"
Throughout the day Owen surrounded Toni with an atmosphere of kindness
which he trusted might dispel the soreness he guessed she was
experiencing; but somehow he failed in his object.
Although the day was superb, a still, golden August day, when the summer
seemed to pause, arrested in its flight by the fulness of perfection to
which it had brought the land, neither Owen nor Toni was sorry to return
to Greenriver. As the car stopped in front of the door Toni cast a
rather wistful look at the jasmine-covered old house she had learned to
love; and for a moment she felt as though she saw herself as those other
women had seen her--the ignorant, frivolous, common little person whom
Owen had married out of pique.
Never in all her life had Toni felt so humble as on this evening, when
she entered the house which was her home. What had she in common with
the beautiful old hall, with the broad staircase leading to the spacious
gallery, lighted now by the Ten Little Ladies, whose light pierced the
gloom like so many kindly little stars?
The pictures, the bowls of roses, all the inanimate things she had grown
to look upon as friends--it seemed to her to-night that they looked
coldly to her, resenting her presence as an interloper; and in one
queer, horrible flash of insight Toni seemed to visualize the woman who
should have been the _châtelaine_ of Greenriver--a tall, dignified,
beautiful woman, with the bearing of a princess....
"What's the matter, dear?" Owen had seen her shiver. "Are you cold? Yet
it's a warm night."
"No, thank you, I'm not cold." She spoke gently. "I--I think I'm a
little tired."
She picked up a brown envelope from the table.
"Look, Owen, here's a telegram for you."
"So there is. Open it for me, will you, dear?"
She did so and handed him the flimsy paper. His eyes brightened as he
read.
"Good old Barry! He's wasted no time--Miss Loder will come down
to-morrow by the ten o'clock train. I must send the car."
He went out and spoke to the chauffeur, returning to say: "Will you
arrange for some lunch to be sent up every day, Toni? She can get off by
the four train, I daresay, and that will give us a good long time for
work."
"I will see to it," Toni said quietly.
"Thanks, dear. Let me see, there's half an hour before dinner. I might
go and put everything in order as far as we've gone, so that we can
start fair. I mustn't waste her time when she gets here."
"No. Of course not."
Although she tried to speak casually, a note in her voice struck Owen
rather unpleasantly. He looked at her sharply in the lamplight; and
something in her child-like attitude, as she stood motionless, her hands
hanging by her sides, gave him a sudden twinge of something like
reproach.
He looked round quickly. They were alone, and acting on impulse Owen
stooped, and putting his left hand under her chin, tilted her face
upwards until their eyes met.
"Come, Toni." He had seen the tears in those wistful eyes of hers.
"What's the matter? You are not hurt about the work, are you? If you
would rather not have the woman, say so, and we will go on as we have
been doing. It will get easier in time."
"Oh no!" Toni spoke quickly, though her lips quivered. "Indeed I'm not
hurt. I--I'm sorry I'm such a fool. I'm only a hindrance to you instead
of a help."
Although he had no conception of the wound dealt to her by two
thoughtless women, Owen realized that she was in earnest; that she
understood, and regretted, her failure to give him the help he needed;
and for perhaps the first time since his marriage Owen pitied his wife
sincerely. After all, it was he, not she, who was to blame; and being
still in the dark, Owen thanked God that at least she had no idea he had
married her without giving her the love she had had a right to expect.
"Hush, Toni dear." He held her to him with his sound arm. "After all, I
want you for my wife, not my typist. Miss Loder may be able to do the
work I want done better than you, because she's used to it; but you're
my wife, Toni, and what does anything else matter?"
He did not know whether his words brought her any comfort. She smiled,
faintly, and returned the kiss he gave her before he let her go; but
when she was alone in her quiet room Toni wept till she could weep no
more.
She hated Miss Loder from the first.
Her self-possessed manner, her cool, grey eyes, above all the suggestion
of competency which lurked in every line of her trim, well-tailored
figure, all alike filled Toni with a sharp sense of resentment which she
felt to be both childish and stupid.
Without perhaps intending it, Miss Loder conveyed a sense of
superiority. Toni was made to feel that this newcomer knew just why she
had been sent for--understood that it was in reality to Toni's
incapacity that she owed her present position; and Toni felt, with a
miserable intensity, that Miss Loder looked upon her as some brilliant
sixth-form girl would survey a kindergarten child, with a kindly,
half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance.
Never had Toni so desperately longed to be clever as during that first
week of Miss Loder's secretaryship; and never had she felt herself to be
so ignorant, so childish, so futile a companion for a man like Owen.
At first Miss Loder had eaten her lunch in solitude. It was Toni's
suggestion that she should join them in the dining-room, and Owen,
supposing that Toni felt it a little discourteous to condemn the other
woman to a lonely meal, agreed cordially to the plan.
Over her luncheon Miss Loder laid aside her rather scholastic, manner,
and talked pleasantly in a quite refreshingly frivolous way; but try as
she might Toni never felt at ease in her presence; and gradually she
dropped out of the conversation until she sat for the greater part of
the meal in silence.
Owen, absorbed in his book, did not notice her taciturnity, and though
he responded politely to Miss Loder's chatter, it was evident he was not
captivated by her undoubted social gifts to the extent of forgetting the
purpose of her presence.
As for Miss Loder, Toni had guessed her attitude towards Mr. Rose's wife
correctly enough. To the clever, highly-trained mind of the Girton girl
Toni's whole personality was so appallingly feeble.
"The brains of a hen, and the soul, probably, of a chorus-girl." So Miss
Loder, quite unjustly, summed up Toni. "Married the man to get out of a
life of drudgery, I expect, and is as much of a companion to her husband
as a pretty little Persian cat would be. Why _will_ these nice men marry
such nonentities, I wonder? She is bound to be a drag on him all her
days."
For all her shrewdness Miss Loder never dreamed that her estimation of
Toni was clearly evident to the person concerned. In her fatally orderly
mind Toni was classified as a "type"--the type of the pretty, useless,
childish wife; and Miss Loder never looked for any variation of the type
when once she had labelled the specimen.
That his now secretary did her work admirably Owen realized with intense
gratitude. For all her modern self-assertiveness Miss Loder was clever
enough to realize that in Owen she had met her intellectual master; and
being at heart a veritable woman she never attempted to challenge the
supremacy of the masculine mind.
The work progressed quickly; and gradually, as the fascination of his
work grew upon him, Owen became more and more absorbed in his book. He
was always planning some incident, rehearsing, mentally, some situation
or some telling dialogue; and the outer life around him receded into a
dim and misty distance, in which Toni's pathetic little figure was
almost lost.
Toni did not give in easily. She made feeble tentative attempts to share
his author's rapture. She asked him timid little questions, to which he
gave smilingly vague answers; and once she even suggested that he should
read to her the chapters he had already finished.
Owen refused, quite gently, but inexorably; and Toni felt a miserable
certainty that he did not think her capable of understanding or
appreciating his work.
The day this happened she ordered the car and went for a long and
solitary excursion into the country. Of late she had not used the car,
preferring to hang wretchedly about the house and garden, half-resenting
the absorption of the two workers shut up in the library, not daring to
interrupt their toil, yet longing, vaguely, for the courage to enter
boldly and claim her share of the mutual labour.
But to-day she felt that she could stand the house no longer. A great
desire was upon her for the sunny places of the earth, and in her
present mood the slow, gliding traffic of the river held for her no
attraction. She longed for the swift, exhilarating rush through the air
which, the car would give her; and Fletcher took her orders with
alacrity.
"A long round--yes, ma'am." He deliberated. "It's not three yet, and I
suppose you don't care to be 'ome much before dinner-time?"
"No, I want to be out for hours," she said feverishly, and Fletcher was
only too pleased to oblige her.
Even Toni's depression could not hold beneath the tonic of that glorious
ride. It was a splendid September day, when the country lay bathed in
floods of rolling sunshine, and there was just enough bite in the air to
set the blood racing through one's veins, and bring the sparkle to one's
eyes.
Toni sat upright in the car, gazing out over the golden fields to the
misty hills beyond, and everything she saw filled her with the true and
vivid happiness which the lover of the "sweet things" of the earth knows
so well.
A field of yellow corn ablaze with scarlet poppies, a group of trees
among which the copper beech blazed with a glory as of the sunset, a
glimpse of a wide common all aflame with sweet-scented gorse ... now and
again a hint of the river flashing and sparkling beneath the shining
sky--Toni, the ignorant, despised Toni, knew how to appreciate the
glories of the earth as the brilliant Millicent Loder could never do.
On and on they rushed. Fletcher, who in common with the other servants
respected Owen and adored Toni, was only too glad to please his young
mistress by taking her far afield; and he utilized his wide knowledge of
the countryside in her service, treating Toni indeed to such a panorama
of the fertile country as she had never yet been privileged to behold.
They were running through a little village on their homeward way when a
tyre burst with a loud report; and Fletcher pulled up with an expression
of dismay.
"I'm sorry, ma'am--I shall have to delay you a bit while I put on a new
tyre." He looked round him rather doubtfully. "I suppose you wouldn't
care to take a cup of tea while I put it right?"
"Mrs. Rose!" A cyclist had halted by the car, and looking up Toni saw
Herrick standing beside her. "Had an accident? Nothing serious, I hope."
"Tyre burst, sir," announced the chauffeur, who with the rest of the
village looked upon the shabby inhabitant of the Hope House as a
harmless eccentric. "I was just asking my mistress if she would care to
have some tea while I repair it."
"A capital idea," said Herrick, whose amused eyes saw quite well the
chauffeur's estimate of him. "Mrs. Rose, may I take you to get some tea?
One of these cottages will supply it, I daresay--or there is quite a
decent little inn over yonder."
"Thanks very much." Toni was thirsty, and she liked Herrick. "I'd love
some tea--if you'll have some too."
"To be sure I will." He propped his bicycle carelessly against a fence
and opened the door of the car. "Which shall we try? A cottage or the
inn?"
In the end they decided for the inn; and leaving Fletcher to set to
work, Herrick escorted Toni down the village street to the door of the
old-fashioned inn which called itself, rather ambiguously, the "Cock and
Bottle."
The landlady, who spoke with a Northern burr which made, Herrick glance
curiously at her, came bustling into the flagged passage to greet them,
and when she had taken their order for tea she ushered them into the
parlour with a hospitable smile.
"I'll fetch tea in a minute," said she, "t' kettle's boilin' an' I've a
cake on the griddle just about fit."
When she had gone Toni turned two perplexed eyes on Herrick.
"Mr. Herrick, what does she mean? Does the cake fit the griddle, or
what?"
Herrick laughed lustily.
"Oh, you Londoner--you poor little Southern kid! Haven't you ever been
in Yorkshire--good old Yarkshire, as they call it--the country of tykes
and gees and men that can't be beat?"
"Oh, is that Yorkshire!" Toni coloured with excitement. "Mr. Herrick, my
father came from there! All his people did--but they're dead now, and
I've never been North!"
"Really?" He was to the full as much interested in the coincidence as
she. "Well, our good landlady is certainly a Yorkshire woman--and I hope
she'll give us a real Yorkshire tea!"
His hope was fulfilled when the buxom Mrs. Spencer returned, which she
speedily did. She carried a tray laden not only with cups and saucers,
but with an assortment of cakes which would have rejoiced the heart of a
Yorkshire child.
"Them's crud cheesecakes," said she, beaming on the pair, "an' these fat
rascals is to-day's bake--and the griddle cakes an' all." She laid the
table deftly. "I'll fetch the tea-pot and t' cream, and then ye can help
yersens."
When she put down the tea-pot, however, Herrick detained her with a
question.
"You don't belong to these parts, Mrs. Spencer?"
"No, sir." She shook her head blithely. "I'm a Yorkshire woman, praise
the pigs! Married a South-country man, I did--and often wished as I
'adn't--when 'e wur alive, that's to say."
"Since his demise you've altered your mind?"
"Well, he left me pretty well provided for," returned the late Spencer's
widow comfortably, "an' I won't say as 'e wur an out-an-out bad 'usband.
But somehow I can't abide South-country folk."
"They say we Yorkshire tykes are a rough lot," said Herrick, smiling,
and she took up the challenge at once.
"Oh, that's all my eye and Betty Martin," she returned in the vernacular
of her youth, "I grant you there's a lot of soft-sawder about the
fellers down here, but they ain't in it wi' us up in Yorkshire."
"Where do you come from, Mrs. Spencer? I'm a dalesman myself;
Wensleydale's my native land."
"I'm from Thirsk, sir. My mother was washerwoman to lots of the gentry
round, and my people still lives there, in a cottage on the Green."
"Ah, I know Thirsk--fine old church there, one of the finest in the
North Riding. You've never been there, Mrs. Rose?" He turned to include
Toni in the conversation, and found her wide-eyed and flushed with
excitement.
"Mr. Herrick, my people lived near Thirsk--in a farm at Feliskirk in the
hills. Oh, do you think she knew them?"
Mrs. Spencer, who had hitherto overlooked Toni, turned to her in
surprise.
"If you'll tell me the name, miss--ma'am. We knew most of t' people in
t' neighbourhood."
"Gibbs--their name was Gibbs." She spoke breathlessly. "The house was
called the Green Farm. Oh, do you know anything about them?"
"Gibbs? The Green Farm?" Mrs. Spencer stared incredulously. "Why, I knew
old Gregory Gibbs well--and a fine old fellow he was too. And Fred and
Roger--why, I knew 'em both. They used to come down into t' town on
market days with their dad, and a pair of jolly little lads they were
an' all--especially Roger."
"Roger was my father," said Toni quietly, and Mrs. Spencer uttered an
exclamation.
"You don't say! But Roger, he ran away--leastways e went off to furrin
parts and we 'eard as 'ow 'e'd married an Heyetalian young lady out
there. And you are really Roger Gibbs' bairn?"
"Yes; he married my mother--an Italian girl--in Naples. I was born
there. But they're both dead now," said Toni sadly.
"Oh, I'm sorry to 'ear that!" Mrs. Spencer spoke sincerely. "To think as
I should live to see young Roger's lass 'ere in my 'ouse! You don't
favour the Gibbs, miss, if I may say so."
"No, Mrs. Rose is more like her mother's people, I expect," said
Herrick, noticing as he spoke how pale Toni looked now that the flush of
excitement had died away. "But if she has never been to Yorkshire, at
least she can taste her native cakes, eh, Mrs. Spencer?"
Thus reminded of her duties Mrs. Spencer bustled away to find some
"preserve," which was only brought out for specially honoured guests;
and Toni took the seat Herrick placed for her at the table.
"You'll pour out for us? That's right. I'm afraid our good landlady will
want to stay and chatter! Do you mind?"
"Oh, no--do let her stay and talk about my people!" pleaded Toni, and
this Mrs. Spencer was very ready to do.
Standing by the table, resting her empty tray on her ample hip, she
poured forth a stream of disjointed memories to which Toni listened
eagerly. Mrs. Spencer, it seemed, had had an aunt living in the village
with the Gibbs; and as a child she had often stayed there; so that she
had known Toni's father well.
"Of course, t' Gibbs were always a cut above us," she owned frankly. "My
feyther was a foundry hand till he died, and wasn't too steady neither;
and when 'e died my mother took in washing. There was a trick young
Roger once played 'er about a washing-basket ... what was it now?" She
paused to meditate. "Nay, I can't think on this minute ... but she allus
said as 'e wur nowt but a bowdekite!" She laughed, jollily, at the
recollection, and pressed a cheesecake on Toni with a heartiness there
was no resisting.
Thanks to her chatter time flew; and Herrick was just beginning to think
of the waiting chauffeur, when there was a sudden spatter of rain
against the window panes; and looking out he saw that while they had
been talking a storm had been brewing.
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little, Mrs. Rose!" He pointed to the
rain, now streaming down in a steady torrent. "It won't be more than a
shower, I daresay."
"Oh, and Fletcher's outside in it." Toni put down her cup. "Mr. Herrick,
could I tell him to come inside and have some tea, do you think? We've
been out for hours, you know."
"Certainly. I'll see about it."
He went out and brought in the chauffeur, delivering him over to Mrs.
Spencer's good offices; and then returned to find Toni sitting rather
disconsolately by the window, looking out at the rain as it splashed
into the quickly-forming puddles in the village street.
The sudden storm, the silence which fell after Mrs. Spencer's departure,
or the early-falling dusk, had brought back all her misery to Toni's
mind, banishing in a flash all her recent joyful animation; and when,
after observing her for a moment, Herrick came forward, he saw that a
blight had fallen over her late gaiety.
She did not hear his step--thought, perhaps, that he had stayed to speak
to the chauffeur or chat with the landlady; and all at once such a sense
of bitter desolation swept over Toni that she began to cry softly to
herself in the dusk.
Instantly Herrick began to back noiselessly towards the door; but Fate,
or perhaps a malignant Boo-Boo, pushed a footstool in his path, over
which he stumbled with an involuntary ejaculation.
Startled, Toni turned round and saw him; and cursing his own clumsiness,
Herrick judged it best to come forward openly.
"Your man is having some tea, under Mrs. Spencer's kindly auspices." He
smiled. "It seems she 'don't reckon nowt' to our combined appetites, so
I hope Fletcher will make up for our shortcomings."
He sat down in the low window seat, not far from Toni, and with a smile
asked permission to smoke.
"Of course--please do." She spoke indifferently.
"Your husband isn't an inveterate smoker--like me?" He lighted a
cigarette gratefully. "I thought most literary men were slaves to
tobacco."
"I think Owen smokes a good deal," she said. "And especially now that he
is working so hard. Miss Loder is quite shocked at his cigarettes."
"Miss Loder?" The question slipped out before he had time to reflect.
"My husband's secretary." She broke off abruptly, as though unwilling to
say more. Then a great flood of bitterness rolled over her spirit, at
the memory of her own failure; and mingled with it came a sore envy and
distrust of the clear-eyed, capable woman who had supplanted her.
Together, the two proved irresistible; and with an almost child-like
instinct to confide in the man whom she felt to be trustworthy, Toni
turned to Herrick and poured forth her sad little story of
disappointment and bitter disillusionment.
Out it all came, her desire to help her husband, and the dread awakening
to the fact of her own incompetency. Herrick, listening, realized, as
perhaps Owen could not have done, what a blow to Toni's hopes the
failure of the experiment had been; and remembering her earlier
confidences, when she had appealed to him to reverse the judgment passed
upon her by two cruel women, he began to wonder whether Toni would ever
find any happiness in the life which had once looked so glorious to her
youthful eyes.
He said very little till she had finished, though now and again, a quiet
question made clear some point involved by her own incoherency; and from
the bottom of his heart he pitied the girl who was beginning to realize
that though she might be the wife of the man she loved, she would never
be his real companion and helpmate until she could attain something
nearer to the high standard of perfection for which he looked.
"This Miss Loder--you like her?"
"I believe--sometimes--I almost hate her," said Toni drearily. "She is
everything I am not, you see. She is clever, well-educated, amusing. I
think I hate women who tell amusing stories," she added vindictively,
biting her lip with her strong little teeth.
"But she is not personally objectionable to you?" Herrick wished to
hear, if possible, how she treated her employer's wife.
"No--at least she doesn't mean to be," said Toni, striving to speak
fairly. "But I know she thinks I am a fool, and pities Owen for having
married me. I believe she thinks I ought never to speak to Owen, never
ask him any questions about the book. She was quite--short--with me
yesterday because I went in to speak to Owen during the afternoon!"
"Oh, but that's absurd!" Herrick felt a quite unreasonable dislike for
the superior Miss Loder. "After all you are his wife--she is only his
secretary--and husbands and wives have a claim on each other which no
sane person would deny."
"Yes." She did not look convinced, and he tried again.
"Don't forget, will you, that a wife holds an absolutely unique
position. She is the one person in the world to whom the man is
answerable for his actions, just as she is answerable to him for her
own; and if she is--hurt--or annoyed by any proceeding on the part of
her husband, she has a perfect right to express her wishes on the
subject."
"You mean I have a right to ask Owen to send away Miss Loder?" Toni was
always direct in her statements. "I suppose I have--if I wanted to--but
I don't. It isn't Miss Loder who makes me miserable. It's the whole
hopeless situation."
Her words startled him.
"Not hopeless, Mrs. Rose!"
"Why not?" In her eyes he read again that hint of a tortured woman soul
which he had glimpsed before. "It isn't very hopeful, is it? My husband
wants help and sympathy, which I cannot give him; and yet because he
married me he can't ask anyone else for it except in a business way."
"But--you don't mean:----" Herrick paused, aghast at the horrible idea
her words had conjured up; and Toni, with the new quickness which
suffering was teaching her, hastened to reassure him.
"Oh, I don't mean he wants to marry any other woman," she said proudly.
"I am his wife--unfortunately for him, perhaps, but he will always be
true to me. Besides, Miss Loder isn't that sort," she added, rather
vaguely.
"Then what----"
"Oh, you don't understand!" Her sad voice robbed the words of all
petulance. "Though you are most awfully kind--and clever--you see you
aren't married, Mr. Herrick, and that makes a difference."
"Who told you I was not married?" His tone was studiously quiet, yet the
girl looked at him quickly, wonderingly.
"I don't think anyone told me--but I thought you weren't." She
hesitated, then went on hurriedly. "I used to think that was why you
were so--so sad. I mean--oh, I know you laugh and talk and are kind, but
somehow I felt all the time there was a sadness underneath...."
She broke off, roused from thoughts of her own trouble by the fear that
she had given him pain; and for a moment neither spoke.
Then, with a glance at the window, down whose panes the rain was still
streaming, Herrick took a sudden resolution.
Perhaps if he told this girl the story of his own marriage, opened
before her eyes the book on whose pages was inscribed so tragic a
history, she might take courage anew, realizing that her own pitiful
little story held no hint, at least, of shame or disgrace, no hint of a
mutual disillusionment which only death could adjust.
He rose abruptly.
"I'll just speak to your man," he said. "I don't think it would be wise
to start yet, but I'll see what he says, shall I?"
She let him go, wondering whether her last speech had vexed him; and in
a moment he returned.
"Fletcher agrees with me that it will be wise to wait a quarter of an
hour," he said; "the rain is not nearly so heavy, and the sky is growing
lighter."
"Very well." She spoke listlessly, and his resolve was strengthened.
Sitting down on the window seat again, he asked her a question.
"You didn't know I was married? Would you care to hear the story of my
marriage? It isn't a very happy story, but it might serve to show you
what a different thing your marriage will yet turn out to be."
"I should like to hear what you can tell me," Toni said slowly; and
after a moment's hesitation Herrick began the story which he had rightly
called unhappy.