Yet that someone was responsible for Toni's sudden outburst of new beauty Miss Gibbs felt assured; and it gradually dawned upon her that there were other men about the place to whom Miss Antonia Gibbs might well appeal.
When questioned about these others, the subordinates who were workers like herself, Antonia at first stared, then coloured impatiently, and finally laughed, with a queer note of impishness in her laughter which puzzled Fanny more than ever.
That she, who was privileged to breathe the same atmosphere as Owen Rose, could be supposed even to realize the existence of any outsider was in itself absurd, if not almost insulting; but Toni was quick to see that here was the opportunity she sought to conceal her wonderful, presumptuous dream.
For she was in love—she knew it now—wildly, deliriously, gloriously in love with Owen. To her he was the embodiment of all that was most noble, most god-like in man. His voice was music, his commands gifts, his rare vexation as the frown of Jove. She trembled and turned pale at his footstep, and when he spoke to her suddenly her heart throbbed and her colour came and went until she felt as though he must observe her emotion.
In a word, she was in love; and when it is remembered that on one side of her Toni was purely of the South—the glowing, ardent, passionate South—it is not to be wondered at that this new emotion dominated her whole being to the exclusion of all else.
Her love, indeed, was pathetic in its young ignorance. Anyone could have told her that she was wasting her treasure, that it was the act of a fool to pour out her priceless gift at the feet of one who did not want it, who would consider it a mere presumption.
Her place in Owen's life was that of a servant, a subordinate; and her common sense should have told her that in that light alone would Owen inevitably behold her. Vaguely she realized this—knew well enough that he never thought of her save as his more or less useful secretary, but after all, she could not be expected to reason out this thing too closely. Its very vagueness, indeed, lent it charm. Her love was veiled, as it were, in a most delicate, most diaphanous mist, which took from it all earthliness, and left it intangible, magical as some gift from fairyland. So far, no hint of desire had entered into it. It was all unselfish, girlish adoration, an almost childish reverence for one immeasurably her superior; and though she made her new dress and adjusted her little bits of muslin and lace with scrupulous care, it was not so much in the hope that she might find favour in Owen's eyes as in the personal longing to make herself more worthy of the love within her.
It never entered her head that Owen would suspect her secret. Indeed, the whole affair was so dream-like, of so unsubstantial, so gossamer a lightness, that merely to speculate upon her romance would have been to shatter it, as one might put a finger through a fairy cobweb.
She loved—and at present that was enough. To be with Owen daily, to sit in the same room, breathe the same air, obey his wishes, help him with his work, was all she desired; and being at heart an incurable little optimist, she was content to weave her rose-coloured dreams, spin her shining web, with no anxiety about the future to shadow and darken her thoughts.
Yet Barry, with his quick intuition, was uncannily aware of the girl's infatuation; and it was Barry who, through his very knowledge of her secret, precipitated the inevitable revelation.