Blushing, she confessed her inability to do more than recognize a French quotation here and there; and a new thought filled her mind.
"Do you think if I were to study French, Mr. Herrick? I've got all my old books, and I could do an exercise every day."
Herrick was half inclined to smile, but she was so desperately in earnest that he refrained.
"A capital plan," he said heartily, thinking to himself that the harder she worked the less time she would have for fretting.
"And if I got to know more poetry I might be able to help Owen with his articles," she said, smiling happily, reassured by his friendly counsel. "Of course they were quite right—I am stupid and ignorant, but if I work hard I think I ought to be able to make myself useful to Owen, oughtn't I, Mr. Herrick?"
"Don't work too hard," he said, half jesting, half in earnest. "You don't want to turn yourself into a blue-stocking, do you? Don't over-develop your brain at the expense of your heart and soul, as so many learned women have done—to their ultimate despair."
"There's no fear of that." Toni spoke in a low voice, and again he caught a glimpse of something disconcerting in her clear eyes. "Those women said I had no soul. But that's nonsense, because everyone has a soul."
"But not everyone realizes it," he said. "Some people go through life and never know they have more than a body, which claims attention while the soul waits, yearningly, for recognition."
He had spoken half to himself, his thoughts wandering for a moment from the girl beside him to another girl whose soul had been, to him at least, as a sealed book.
"I have been like that," said Toni surprisingly. "But I have a soul—and for Owen's sake I am going to prove it. Only"—she faltered find her brave accents died away—"perhaps it is too late, after all."