He was still puzzling over the question when he re-entered Toni's room; and his first words showed her what was in his mind.
"Rather bad taste—that allusion to her husband's anxiety. Don't you think so, Toni? After all, he might well be uneasy about a woman who has once got into such serious mischief as she has done."
"Why? It's not likely to happen again." Toni, poring over Punch, spoke shortly.
"No, of course not." Owen hesitated, but as Toni evinced no signs of wishing to continue the conversation he went out of the room hurriedly, leaving his wife alone with the evidences of Mr. Dowson's good-will.
The next time Eva visited Toni she said jocularly:
"Well, I do think you're mean, Toni!" They had recently advanced to this stage of intimacy. "Fancy not telling me that Mr. Dowson had once proposed to you."
Toni, taken aback, blushed vividly.
"He didn't—at least—not exactly. I mean——"
"Oh, I know what you mean!" Eva laughed. "Of course you couldn't have accepted him—he's a nice fellow in his way, but impossible as a husband." At times Squire Payton's daughter was quite blatantly aristocratic. "But you might have told me, all the same."
"Why? It doesn't matter—now."