"Come, Barry, confess the truth. You're afraid Toni will jump at me—to put it baldly. You know"—for a second he hesitated—"you know, Barry, I'm not blind, and I can't help seeing that the girl has ... well, taken a fancy to me; and if that is so, seeing that the woman I wanted wouldn't have me, why shouldn't I offer myself to the one who ... would perhaps take me if I asked her to?"
"You really mean to ask her, then?"
"Yes. I know you won't approve, old chap, but I'm going to do it all the same. The girl may refuse me, you know, and then there'll be no harm done."
And nothing could move him from the attitude he had adopted. The utmost concession Barry could wring from him was a promise to wait for a week at least before carrying out his plan; and during the whole of that week Barry did his utmost to dissuade his friend from taking a step which he foresaw would end in disaster.
He argued, cajoled, even thundered, in vain. He spoke of disparity of tastes, of habits, of views on life in general; and Owen laughingly reminded him that dissimilarity in tastes was supposed to be a good foundation for wedded happiness.
He pointed out that although Antonia herself was a lady in the best sense of the word, neither he nor Owen knew anything of her family; and he endeavoured to alarm Rose by his vigorous sketch of her possibly undesirable relations.
"I tell you the girl's an orphan," said Owen, smiling as Barry finished painting an imaginary portrait of a very unattractive mother-in-law. "She lives with an uncle and aunt and a family of cousins somewhere Brixton way."
"Then I suppose the wedding will take place in Brixton," said Barry, with an assumption of polite interest, and Owen coloured in spite of himself.
"No—at least, not in a church. I can't face a regular wedding, Barry, seeing my bride isn't the one I expected to lead to the altar. I think the Registrar will have to tie the knot, and we'll dispense with all the fuss of satins and veils and white flowers that I was dreading with all my heart!"
Something in his tone—a hint of dreary disappointment, of a wretchedness hitherto well concealed, made Barry feel compunction for his own rough handling of what must have been in reality a sore subject; and quite suddenly he abandoned his own superior, not to say condemnatory, attitude for a more human, more sympathetic frame of mind.