"Why not?" He stretched out his arms with a curious, restless gesture. "Because I've got unsettled, I suppose. You see, when you've looked on yourself as practically a married man, planned everything, renounced your bachelor ways and anticipated a new and more settled existence, well, somehow you can't go back to the old state of things. There's the house, too. I feel as though I wanted to live in it again—the servants are clamouring for me to go there. I promised, you know, and the river is so lovely in the summer...."
"Well, why not go down and have a car?"
"Go there—alone?" He spoke bitterly. "No, thanks. That would be folly. I meant to go with my wife——"
Suddenly he stopped in his restless pacing and faced Barry with gleaming eyes.
"By gad, Barry! Why shouldn't I take my wife there after all?"
"Your wife?" Even the quick-witted Barry was at fault.
"Yes. My wife." He laughed at the other man's face. "Oh, I'm not married yet, but why shouldn't I be? I swore I'd marry the first woman who'd have me, and it's just occurred to me—Barry, do you thing she would have me?"
"She? What she?" demanded Barry in justifiable bewilderment.
"Why, our excellent little secretary and typist—our Miss Gibbs—our Antonia, known at home as Toni!"
Barry's boyish face flushed crimson, and for a second he looked so angry that Owen stared in genuine amazement.