"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.