"I wish you would, dear." He threw aside his coat as he spoke. "I had some lunch on the train, but you know what railway lunches are. I came down from Waterloo with Rose. Jove, Eva, that fellow looks a wreck."
"Does he?" Suddenly she remembered that Toni's letter was lying open on the table. "I—I suppose he will get over—it—in time."
"I don't think he will. Of course he must really have been devoted to her—to his wife—all the time, without knowing it. And I don't wonder. She was one of the best, pluckiest, straightest girls I ever met. I don't believe she could have done a dishonourable action to save her life."
He had spoken quite without any ulterior meaning, carried away by his memory of Toni as he had known and admired her; but his words sounded to Eva like a direct and deadly insult; and her Irish blood flamed instantly into revolt.
"Toni straight!" All softer feelings were forgotten now; again she was the unhappy woman at war with all the world, but especially with her own sex. "Very straight of her to elope with another man, wasn't it? And as for pluck, why, she couldn't even stick to him when she'd done it."
"Hush, Eva!" Herrick's brow wore the frown she hated, and, secretly, feared. "You were never fair to that unhappy girl; and both you and I know very well that had you acted differently half this misery would have been spared."
"I was unfair to her?" Eva's voice was choked with rage.
"Yes." He spoke deliberately, rather sadly. "From the first you treated Toni Rose, unfairly. You knew she was very young, and not very wise in the ways of the world, and whereas you were an older woman—very little older in actual years, I grant you——"
"I suppose you mean older in wickedness." She spoke between her teeth.
"I mean you were old enough to have helped the child instead of encouraging her in her foolishness," he said steadily. "But you did not. You preferred to inflame her mind by exaggerating her woes, making her feel herself misunderstood, unloved, unwanted ... oh, I don't know what you said, what passed between you, but this I do know. You saw that child shivering on the brink, as it were, of a dreadful precipice, and not only did you refrain from pulling her back from the edge, but I'm horribly afraid that yours was the hand which sought to push her over."