Toni was so surprised by the discovery of the unknown marauder's
identity that she involuntarily released her hold on the dog's collar;
but Jock's sudden dart across the path, and his snarl of anger as he
confronted the person whom in his doggy heart he took for an enemy,
awoke Toni to a sense of the position.
"Jock! Come here! _Jock_, do you hear me?" Her tone showed Jock that,
much as appearances were against the intruder, his canine instinct had
been at fault; and he returned, unwillingly, to his mistress, wearing
the slightly sulky look which an intelligent dog wears when he has made
an unavoidable mistake.
"Mrs. Rose, I assure you I did not mean to frighten you." Mr. Dowson
emerged rather hastily from the shadow of the bushes, and advanced, hat
in hand. "I--I am really most awfully sorry if I have startled you.
I ... I would have called out sooner, but I trusted you would not
perceive me."
"Mr. Dowson!" Toni's voice was frankly dismayed. "What are you doing
here? Were you coming to see me?"
"I--I really don't know." Mr. Dowson moved a step forward and then gave
an involuntary jump as Jock growled mildly, under his breath as it were.
"But--be quiet, Jock--it's so late--and----"
"Oh, I know it's late." Suddenly Mr. Dowson lost his head. "But I
couldn't stop away. I--I've been here heaps of times--at
night--generally I've stopped outside the gates, but once or twice I had
to come in.... I--I couldn't stop away. It drove me mad to think of you
here--and I had to come, just to be near you, if I couldn't see
you--speak to you."
"But----" Toni began, but he cut her short.
"Oh, you can't understand, of course! You've never understood--you've
never known how much I've loved you--oh, it's no use being angry! I know
quite well I've no right to speak. You're married, a great lady now, by
all I hear--but I love you--Toni--oh, my God, how I love you!" The sweat
stood in great drops on his brow as he hurried on, a certain rough
eloquence in his words. "After all, I'm a man, I've a right to love
you--or any woman--and I've loved you now for years--it's not something
new, just a passing attraction--it's part of me, something in my very
bones, as near me as breathing or sleeping or thinking--I'm simply eaten
up with love for you, Toni. You're my life, my everything. I'd die for
you, I'd go through fire end water for you, I'd do anything in the
world, bad or good, dishonourable or splendid, if you'd be kind to me,
smile on me, let me kiss your little feet...."
Toni, swept off her balance by his passion, said nothing, but stood
opposite to him, panting a little; and after a second he went on with
his wild confession.
"Oh, I know I'm wrong, I know you're hating me, despising me for telling
you all this, but it's too much for me. I can't bear it alone any
longer. It's driving me mad, Toni, mad, do you hear? At night I dream of
you--sometimes I dream that you've been kind to me, that I've kissed
you--kissed your little mouth, held you in my arms ... and then I wake
and know you're another man's wife, and it makes the blood rush to my
head and I see red, Toni, red...."
Something in his excitement warned the girl that she must soothe him.
"Hush, Leonard." In that moment she reverted to the days of their early
friendship. "Don't speak so wildly. You--you frighten me."
He passed his hand over his brow, and when he spoke his voice was a
shade quieter.
"I wouldn't frighten you for the world, Toni, you know that. I love you
far too well ... oh, Toni, is it quite hopeless! Isn't there a glimmer
of pity in your heart for me? Won't you ever give me a thought...."
"Leonard, how can I?" She spoke in a low voice, all Eva's horrid
suggestions rushing over her in a flood. "I'm married; I can't ever be
anything to you now."
"Oh, I know you're married." He caught his breath in a gasp. "But
still--oh, Toni, you wouldn't come away with me, would you? I've got
some money now. I'd be able to give you things, and I'd work for you
till I died...."
At another moment Toni would have found occasion to wonder at his
temerity in making the suggestion. She did not know how his imagination,
fired by Eva's insinuations, played about the figure of Owen Rose's wife
as the unloved victim of a man's callousness; and although she could see
that Leonard Dowson was in deadly earnest, she had no conception of the
sincerity of his belief that she had been wronged, trapped into marriage
by a man who cared little for her, and neglected her openly.
Such was the manner in which the situation had been presented to Dowson
by Eva Herrick; and in his genuine acceptance of her story lay Dowson's
best excuse for his wild plan.
"I ... I couldn't come away with you, Leonard." In spite of her desire
to set Owen free, Toni's whole soul revolted at the idea of such
treachery. "I'm married, you know, and I couldn't leave my husband."
"Why not?" in his despair the young man pressed still nearer, and again
Jock uttered a warning growl. "I know you are married, but still--you're
not happy--your husband isn't, either, by what I hear. You'd be wronging
nobody--you've no children to consider"--in some ways Mr. Dowson was as
primitive as Toni--"if you had, it would be different, but you've only
yourself to think about. This life doesn't suit you, Toni. It cramps
you, worries you. Oh, I heard all about that Badminton Club affair, and
everyone knows you don't hit it off with the bigwigs of the
neighbourhood."
"Who told you that?" For a moment Dowson quailed before her tone; but he
rallied bravely.
"Oh, what does it matter who told me? It's true, isn't it? Why, you look
different, Toni. You're not the lively, jolly, animated girl you used to
be--all smiles and jokes. Toni, you're paler, and thinner--you've grown
quiet, almost sad. It's because you're not happy--and--and I'd die for
your happiness any day."
His deadly earnestness could not fail to win response. Here at last was
a passion unveiled before Toni's wondering eyes; and all at once the
thing which had seemed impossible came down to the level of the things
which--sometimes--happen.
Here was a man who only asked to serve her; and if by accepting his
service she could free her husband from the chain which bound him, all
unwilling, to her, was it not the act of a coward to refuse?
It may be said, and with truth, that Toni's view of the matter was
perverted, distorted beyond all bounds of reason and of common sense. To
leave her husband, to whom in spite of all she clung with every fibre of
her being, for another man for whom she had not even the smallest atom
of affection, was surely the most insane, inexcusable action in the
world; and would after all only result in a negligible good, since the
insult paid, to the man she betrayed would quite outweigh any relief in
the freedom thus obtained.
Then, too, she would be wronging Leonard Dowson; since to go away with
him would lead him to suppose a degree of affection on Toni's part which
was in reality non-existent; but Toni was not thinking of Dowson in this
matter.
There is no woman so absolutely ruthless towards the mass of mankind as
the woman who loves one man completely. In this affair Owen was the only
man who counted in Toni's mind; and she thought of Leonard Dowson merely
as a convenient tool with which to effect her husband's release from the
position he apparently found unendurable. That the reckoning might come
afterwards, when Leonard should see himself as Toni saw him, she did not
pause to consider. Indeed, on this occasion her thoughts were so wild
and chaotic that she could hardly be said to have considered the matter
at all.
"Well, Toni?" Her long silence made him uneasy, and he paled, fearing he
had angered her by his persistence.
"Well?" She gazed at him absently for a moment, then woke suddenly to
life. "Leonard, are you seriously asking me to go away with you? You
mean you would take me away, and let my husband divorce me--for you?"
"Yes, Toni." He spoke firmly; and, if for a moment all his lifelong
visions of a respectable London practice, prosperity, the respect of
those around him, seemed to rise up reproachfully before his eyes, he
meant his words absolutely.
"Would you really do it? You must be very fond of me," said Toni simply;
and the young man was emboldened to proceed.
"Of course I would do it, and of course I am fond of you." His voice
shook a little. "Toni do you really mean that you will think about
it--will give me the tiniest fraction of hope to keep me alive?"
"Yes. I will think about it." She spoke slowly. "But--I can't tell
you--now. You must go away and let me think things out."
"Don't think too long," he besought her, fearing that prudence might
come with reflection. "When will you tell me, Toni? To-morrow? Will you
write to me? One word--yes--will do; and I'll make arrangements at
once."
For a moment his earnestness startled her.
"You could do it--like that--at once? Leave your practice and everything
else at a moment's notice?"
"I'd leave all I have in the world at a second's notice," said Mr.
Dowson resolutely; and Toni could not but believe in his sincerity.
"Very well." She felt tired suddenly. "I will write--to-morrow. But--but
you won't be angry if it's _no_?" Toni added childishly.
"I'd never be angry--with you." The young man's commonplace features
were irradiated by a great light, and for a moment one could forget his
mean stature and ready-made clothing. "You will never understand--you
couldn't--what you are to me; but before God," said Leonard Dowson
solemnly, "I'd devote my life, my soul, all I have to your service, and
never ask for thanks."
"Well, if you will go now, I will write to you," said Toni, rather
wearily; and his passion was checked by the fatigue in her voice.
"I'll go now--at once--and you--you will write, Toni? I'll count every
moment till I get your letter."
"Yes, I will write," she reiterated dully, wishing he would go and leave
her alone with her thoughts; and without another word he turned and
vanished into the shadows.
When the sound of his footsteps had died away and all was silence, Toni
shivered with a feeling of deadly chill.
Leonard Dowson's appearance, following so closely on Eva Herrick's
suggestions, had given her a queer, eerie sensation of awe, as though
some inexorable fate were pointing out to her a way of escape from the
situation she was beginning to find intolerable. She never doubted the
man's affection for her; and she fully believed that he would indeed die
in her service. And the very touch of fanaticism in her love for Owen,
which made her feel that it would be a small thing indeed to die for him
if by dying she might give him happiness, helped her to realize the
strength of the pallid, unromantic young dentist's devotion.
True, Toni was too innately sensible a person--perhaps it would be
fairer to say her love of life and its "sweet things" was too strong--to
allow her to contemplate death as a solution of the problem of her
unsuccessful marriage.
She understood, too, with a queer flash of spiritual insight which was
foreign to her usual simple vision, that her death would bring Owen only
a great sorrow; and in her darkest moments she never dreamed of courting
death.
A sudden bark from Jock made her start; and looking round she found Owen
almost at her elbow. He had dismissed his taxi at the gate, and was
walking briskly up the dark avenue, when Jock's vociferous welcome broke
the night silence and brought him to a halt.
"Hallo, old boy, what are you doing here? That you, Andrews?"
Toni moved forward from the shadow, and beneath the dark cloak which had
deceived him he caught the pale glimmer of her skirt.
"No, Owen. It is I, Toni."
"You? Why, what are you doing here? Oh, I see--you brought Jock for a
run. Well, it's quite warm to-night--but the air has the feel of rain."
"Yes. I thought I felt a drop just now."
"Did you? Well, we'll get indoors. I'm sorry I am so late, dear, but
there's been trouble at the office. Oh, nothing much, only Hart, our new
sub-editor, had chosen to return an article we'd commissioned, because
he said it was not up to our usual level."
"And wasn't it?" Toni's forlorn heart welcomed his friendly tone.
"Of course it was. It was about the best stuff young Lewis had ever
turned out--and a fool like Hart, whose taste is distinctly precious,
hasn't the wit to appreciate good, clean, straightforward English. He
likes a mass of involved, wordy stuff that only the high-brows can
understand."
He broke off laughing.
"Well, anyway we sent for it back in double-quick time; but Lewis had
taken the huff and didn't want us to have it. So Hart had to
apologize--which _he_ didn't enjoy--and altogether the place was in a
ferment."
"But it's all right now?"
"Yes, thank Heaven. I say, Toni; I went to see old Vincent about my arm
to-day, and he says it is fairly normal again. I'll tell you a secret,
shall I, Toni? As soon as the book is finished I'm going to start a
play."
"Are you?" Her voice sounded cold, though it was only vague; and her
unusual lack of interest rather hurt Owen.
"Oh, we'll have our holiday first," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to
do you out of that. How would you like a few weeks in Switzerland--for
the winter sports? We could get off in about three weeks, and stay over
Christmas. Then, when we came home"--in spite of himself his tone took a
new enthusiasm--"I could get to work again."
"You are going to write a play? But I didn't know you could write
plays."
Her childishness jarred his nerves, already worn with the minor
vexations of the day.
"Well, _I_ don't know until I try." He spoke rather curtly. "But I've
talked it over with Barry, and we think it sounds possible."
"I see. And if it were a success?"
"Why, our fortune would be made." He took her arm in friendly fashion.
"Then we should have to go and live in town, Toni, take a big house and
launch out. You'd like that, eh?"
"I should hate it," she said, so fervently that he dropped her arm in
astonishment and turned to look at her.
"Hate it! Why?"
"I hate big houses--and entertaining--and all the rest. I--I should
loathe to have to go to receptions and give big parties--I'm never any
good at talking, you know yourself I look a fool when anyone tries to
talk to me."
"I know you're a little silly," said Owen teasingly, "but you'll outgrow
that. Here we are--come along in, Toni, it's really beginning to rain.
Come in, Jock, and let me shut the door."
Safely inside the hall, Owen turned to Toni.
"Come into the library, will you, dear? I'll send for some sandwiches
and a whisky and soda, I think. I hurried over dinner and I'm hungry."
Toni gave the order at once, and then followed Owen to the library,
where a cheerful fire burned, and in the mellow lamplight the room
looked very stately and charming.
She sat down on the low club-fender in front of the hearth and gazed
into the leaping fire in silence, while Owen opened the letters which
had accumulated during the day.
For a few moments there was no sound save the crackling of paper and the
soft little chatter of the fire. Then Owen crumpled up a letter he held
and flung it from him with something which sounded like an oath.
Toni, roused from her reverie, turned round to face him.
"What's the matter, Owen?"
"Matter enough, I think." His face wore a frown which boded ill for
someone. "Toni, what have you been saying to Miss Loder to make her
write this letter?"
"Saying to Miss Loder?" Every scrap of colour faded from her face, and
Owen, watching, took her pallor for the ashy hue of guilt.
"Yes. You've said something--I don't know what--but I should like to
know at once, without prevarication, just what it is."
"I've said nothing to Miss Loder." Her voice was unsteady--she too had
felt her nerves jarred during this dreadful day.
"Well, you see what she says." He stooped and picked up the letter,
which he handed to Toni. "Read that, and tell me what you make of it."
With fingers as cold as ice, and a memory in her heart of another letter
which had brought her misery, Toni took the sheet, and read, in Miss
Loder's firm, characteristic hand, the letter in which she requested to
be allowed to resign her post.
"I am not taking this step without serious thought," so the letter ran,
"and for some time I determined to remain with you as long as you
honoured me by your acquiescence in the arrangement. But learning, as I
do, from a quite indisputable source, that my presence in your house is
distasteful to Mrs. Rose, I have no option but to ask you to release me
from a position which is not only unpleasant but undignified. If you
will be kind enough to waive the question of notice, I would prefer to
terminate the engagement at once."
Here followed her signature, firm and clear as ever; and then came a
postscript, surely a sign of disturbance on the part of so academic a
scribe.
"I would prefer to dissever all connection with the _Bridge_ at the same
time; but am willing to remain at the office until you find a suitable
person for the post."
Having read the letter Toni let it fall upon her knee, while she gazed
dreamily into the red heart of the fire, her brain working slowly as she
tried to understand the significance of Miss Loder's epistle.
Something in her abstraction appeared to irritate Owen; for he came a
step forward and spoke rather brusquely.
"Well? You've read it? What have you to say about it?"
"To say? Nothing." She lifted her eyes to his, and let them drop again,
wearily, to the letter on her knee.
"Oh, come, Toni, that's nonsense." Conscious of the irritation in his
tone Owen paused, then spoke more gently. "Miss Loder is not the sort of
person to imagine slights--she has been out in the world too long for
that. But evidently she has clearly seen your antipathetic attitude
towards her, and feels that in the circumstances she cannot remain."
"I have never slighted Miss Loder." Toni, frightened, sounded defiant.
"Not exactly. But you have shown _me_ very plainly that you resented her
presence; and I suppose you have not been very careful to hide
your--well, prejudice--from the girl herself."
"She has no right to say such things," said Toni, a warm flush creeping
up beneath her ivory pallor. "I have never been rude to her, as you seem
to think. I have always hated her, I admit--always, from the first time
I saw her; but----"
"Ah, you acknowledge that." Owen pounced on the admission. "But why,
Toni? Why should you hate the girl?"
"Why? I don't know," said Toni recklessly. "Simply because I do, I
suppose--because if I knew her for a hundred years I should never do
anything but hate her."
"And so, through your senseless jealousy, I'm to lose the best secretary
I've ever had." Owen's tone was cold. "Really, Toni, I think you've gone
a little too far this time. Quite apart from the fact that you must have
behaved in a very childish and unladylike fashion to make the girl so
uncomfortable, you have also done me an injury. If you didn't care for
my work for its own sake--and I know neither the _Bridge_ nor my book
has ever appealed to you--still I think you might have sacrificed your
personal feelings just a little and considered my position in the
matter."
From her lowly seat on the fender, Toni looked up at him with a strange
expression in her eyes. In truth, at that moment Toni's soul was a
battlefield of conflicting emotions. Anger, defiance, resentment at what
she considered her husband's injustice, were mingled with a great dread
of Owen's displeasure; and a wild, miserable despair at the thought of
his conception of her as indifferent to his aims and ideals. At one and
the same moment she longed to hurl defiance into his face, and to cast
herself, weeping, into his arms. But she did neither, only looked up at
him with that inscrutable expression in her eyes, waiting for him to
speak.
"Now I suppose I shall have to look out for another secretary." Owen was
annoyed and showed it. "Thank Heaven, the proofs are about finished, but
this knocks the play on the head. I suppose I'll find someone else to
help me, but the whole thing is very absurd and annoying."
Suddenly Toni's self-control, already shaken by the meeting with Dowson,
deserted her completely.
She rose from her seat like a small whirlwind and confronted Owen with
scarlet cheeks and blazing eyes.
"Wait a moment, Owen. Don't say any more, please. Remember there is my
side of the question to be considered." She faced him bravely. "You knew
from the start that I was not literary or learned--I told you before we
were married that I wasn't half clever enough for you, and you said it
didn't matter. Then, when I'd tried to help you and failed, you got Miss
Loder here in my place. You knew I disliked her, but you didn't know
what cause I had for my dislike."
Owen, silenced by her vehemence, stared at her speechlessly, and she
went on hurriedly.
"From the first she despised me. She saw I wasn't well-educated, that I
wasn't even in her class. Oh, I know she is connected with all sorts of
people, but she ought not to have let me see so plainly that she looked
down on me as a nobody. She never lost a chance of humiliating me. Why,
at lunch over and over again I've sat silent while you and she talked.
If I ventured to speak, she listened, quite politely, till I had
finished, and then went on talking as though I'd not spoken. For days
and days I hardly saw you. You were shut up there with her, and I was
all alone. I was no one to you, she was everyone. I was your wife, but
she was your companion. Everyone noticed how I was left alone; they all
knew you ignored me--I was miserable, but you never saw----"
"You--miserable, Toni?" Owen spoke abruptly.
"How could I be anything else? You treated me always as a child--an
unreasonable, ignorant child----"
"Well?" Owen interrupted her, but his tone was one meant to conciliate,
for suddenly he thought he saw a way to end this deplorable scene. "And
aren't you a child? A pretty, engaging child, I grant you--but
still----"
"No." It was her turn to interrupt, and white to the lips she faced him.
"I am not a child any longer--I was until a short time ago, but you have
changed me into a woman----"
"Come, Toni." Deceived by her quiet tone Owen laid his hand on her arm.
"Don't grow up too quickly. Let me have my little child-wife a bit
longer yet----"
She shook his hand off with a violence for which he was not prepared,
and he spoke angrily, his softer impulses dying away.
"Hang it all, Toni, you needn't repulse me as if I were a snake. You
_are_ a child, after all, and a jolly bad-tempered one at that!" It was
the first time he had ever used such a tone, and the girl's anger flared
up in reply.
"A child--of course--you think so, you always will--you and your
precious secretary!" As she spoke Toni snatched up a packet of
neatly-folded proofs from the table behind her. "This is her work, I
suppose. Oh, how I _hate_ her--and you--and the book! I'd like to
destroy it all--to burn it up--like that!"
With a passionate gesture she turned round and flung the bundle of
papers into the very heart of the fire blazing on the hearth behind her.
"There!" She faced him again, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing
stormily. "I'd burn it all--if I could. You like your book better than
me--but I've burnt so much of it, anyway."
Owen had started forward as she spoke, but it was useless to attempt to
save the burning sheets, and he fell back from the hearth with an
exclamation of anger.
"You are a little fool, Toni." He spoke coldly. "What, good do you
expect to do by a piece of childish spite like that? Those proof sheets
were all corrected--now the duplicate set will have to be revised, and
as they are due in London to-morrow, I shall have to spend several hours
over them before I can get to bed to-night."
Toni, frightened now at what she had done, stood motionless during his
speech. As he said the last words her rage melted suddenly into
contrition.
"Owen--I'm--I'm sorry." She spoke haltingly. "I--I didn't mean to give
you trouble. Can I--will you let me help you--to make up for what I've
done?"
He raised his eyebrows and laughed rather bitterly.
"It's very kind of you, Toni, but I think I won't trouble you. Your
repentance is a little belated, isn't it? And I think I prefer to keep
my work to myself in future."
The fire of her rage gave one last expiring flicker.
"As usual," she said, "your work is more to you than I. I wonder you
ever married, Owen. Marriage doesn't seem to mean a great deal to you."
"I sometimes wonder, myself," he said drily. "Certainly I haven't found
it a very enjoyable state of late. It seems you haven't, either. Perhaps
we were in too great a hurry after all, Toni."
He did not mean the words, which were wrung from him by his exasperation
at her childish folly; but the effect on Toni was disastrous.
She could not well turn paler than she was already; but a chill crept
into her veins, congealing her blood as she stood in front of the fire.
She shivered slightly; and then with an effort which made her feel
physically exhausted, she moved slowly towards the door.
"Where are you going, Toni?" Owen questioned her rather coldly.
She turned round; and all the youth was gone from her face.
"I am going to bed," she answered quietly. "Good-night, Owen."
And without waiting for a reply she opened the door and went slowly out
of the room.