"Just as you like." She spoke with the utmost docility. "I suppose we had better go. I haven't an umbrella—have you?"
"No—and your dress is thin." He looked at her white gown, which had not been improved by her incarceration in the mouldy summer-house, and showed traces of the dust and dirt of the bench on which she had crouched while the two women talked outside. Altogether Toni presented a pathetic little figure; and Herrick felt a sudden desire to know her safely at home, hidden from inquisitive eyes.
He called Olga, who had been playing an enticing game of hunting quite imaginary rabbits in the hedgerow; and when the great dog bounded up in obedience to his summons, he jumped over the stile and held out his hand to help Toni. She climbed over rather lifelessly, catching her white skirt on a splinter of wood and tearing a rent which filled Herrick with dismay.
"You've torn your pretty dress! What a shame—will it be quite spoilt?"
"Oh no, I can mead it," she returned indifferently, "and any way it doesn't matter." To Toni nothing mattered just then.
"That wretched splinter was to blame. I'm afraid I didn't notice it," he said contritely.
"Oh, it wasn't your fault. Perhaps it was one of your queer creatures, the Boo-Boos," said Toni with a wintry attempt at a smile; and Herrick was struck with the readiness with which she had adopted his whimsical theory.
As they went across the fields beneath the now cloudy sky, he tried to keep the conversation at the same light level; but although Toni strove to adapt herself to his mood, it was evident that her thoughts were still circling round the revelation which had shattered her fairy castle; and just as the chimneys of Greenriver came in sight above the tall tree-tops, she asked him a question which had been formulating in her mind throughout the walk homewards.
"Mr. Herrick, do you think I could improve myself somehow—I mean could I read some books, or do something to make myself a more suitable wife for Owen? You know"—she caught her breath—"I can't bear for him to be ashamed of me, or bored with me—and they said—those women, that he was both."
For a second Herrick thought of treating the matter lightly, assuring her that what the women had said was of no importance whatever. Then he knew there was only one course open to him, and he met sincerity with sincerity, candour with candour.