CHAPTER VI
It did not take Miss Fanny Gibbs very long to discover that her cousin's new post held for her an interest beyond that which an unusually congenial situation might be expected to hold.
In Miss Gibbs' world one's "job" was generally of very secondary importance to one's private affairs; and the fact is not to be wondered at when one remembers that the life of the average shop or business girl can by no manner of means be called either pleasant or exciting.
Hitherto Toni had been fully in accord with her cousin's opinion. Although the robust, if promiscuous, flirtations in which Fanny, before her engagement, had indulged freely had never appealed to the more fastidious Toni, she had always been quite ready to join in any fun which might be going. She had eaten sweets gaily in the cheap seats of theatre or picture-palace, had made one at the many informal and harmless little gatherings for which Fanny had a taste; and had cheerfully and quite normally grumbled if detained at the office one moment longer than she considered fair.
But of late Antonia had altered strangely; and Fanny's shrewd eyes noted the change almost from the first.
To begin with, Toni was always in a fidget to get to work. Miss Gibbs took her annual week's holiday just then, and had plenty of time to note her cousin's behaviour; and the way in which Toni swallowed her breakfast and clad herself for the start was a revelation to one who knew her former dilatory nature.
Toni had always been careful of her appearance—more so than her cousin considered at all necessary; but now she was absolutely ridiculous, so thought Fanny, with her new Peter-Pan collars and her fussy attention to her pretty hands, set off by tiny lace cuffs to match the collars. Her black frock, only a year old, was perfectly good and serviceable yet; but the extravagant creature must needs make herself another one in her spare time, and never had she been so particular about the cut, nor so incessant in her demands on Fanny for a helping hand with the "trying-on." She bought herself a new hat, too, a little soft affair in which she looked perfectly delicious; and as the days went by it seemed to Fanny that her cousin was growing prettier and more attractive every week, with a still more bewitching colour in her rounded cheeks, and a still more sparkling light in her Southern eyes.
Yet even her woman's wit could not fathom the mystery of Toni's new joy in life. When interrogated concerning her employers, Toni was always vague. That there were two of them Fanny knew; but from Toni's extremely colourless description, Miss Gibbs gathered that neither was at all what the girls called interesting; and Mr. Rose, at least, almost middle-aged. (Heaven knows what flight of fancy on the part of Toni—Toni, whose magic romance was the shyest, most delicate fantasy in the world—was responsible for that fallacy!)
That Barry was younger Fanny understood; but so lightly did Toni touch upon his kindness that Fanny could not be accused of density in her conception of him as a nonentity in whom her little cousin could take no interest.