After dinner he yielded to the joint entreaties of Toni and Barry and went to bed; leaving his wife to entertain his guest until the car should come round to take him to the station.
The evening had closed in with rain, and the two sat by one of the widely-opened windows in the drawing-room, looking out into the dusky garden, and listening to the soft patter of the rain on the foliage bordering the lawn. There was no wind, and against the cloudy sky the tall trees stood like black giants holding out immovable arms, while from the flowers, refreshed by the shower after their hot, thirsty day, a grateful fragrance rose to sweeten the damp, cool air.
For some time Barry and his hostess sat in silence. Toni had taken her favourite low chair, and her hands lay idly in her lap, the wedding-ring which was their sole ornament gleaming in the lamplight. To Barry's eyes her youthful prettiness had a slightly dimmed effect. Without losing anything of its virginal purity of outline there was a hint of weariness, of almost jaded fatigue, which startled Barry. He thought always of Toni as some joyous woodland nymph, a pagan it might be, a hedonist by nature and training; and while he had regretted, formerly, her lack of worldly and womanly experience, it gave him something of a pang at heart to find that this little pagan creature, this pretty, wild, untutored Undine could apparently lose, for the moment at least, her joy in the "sweet things" of life. That in the process she might be slowly and painfully realizing her soul he did not stop to think. To him the fatigue in her face was pathetic; to Herrick it would have been enlightening.
"Mr. Raymond——" Toni spoke at last, and he threw off his absorption to listen. "If Owen's arm is broken, how will he do his work?"
"That is just what I've been wondering," said Barry. "Of course the ordinary office work, the work of the Bridge, will go on all right without him for a bit. I mean—well, you see I can look after things pretty well, and we have an excellent secretary in Miss Loder."
"But his own work? He is writing a book—a novel, isn't he? He said something about it—though he hasn't read any of it to me," added Toni rather wistfully.
"I don't suppose he's got very far," said Barry, wondering whether she felt slighted by the omission. "Owen is a quick worker, I know, but he has only been at it for a week or two."
"Oh, I know," she replied hastily. "But how will he go on with it? He can't write with his left hand, can he?"
"Not very well." An idea struck Barry, and without stopping to think he gave it utterance. "Look here, Mrs. Rose, you can help Owen no end! You must take it down for him. You could easily scribble it off and then type it out afterwards, couldn't you?"
Into Toni's eyes flashed a light of pure joy.