The Making of a Soul Part 41

Toni, for her part, was occupied in thanking the Providence which had seen fit to equip her with a set of perfectly sound white teeth; and she felt an intense sympathy with the hapless Eva, whose nerves, undermined by her late experience, were already betraying her into signs of agitation.

"I won't hurt you, really," said Mr. Dowson, with a beaming smile, which he felt to be out of place, but could not restrain. "Please lean back a little more--so. Now open--just a _leetle_ wider--thank you, that will do."

It was soon evident that the visit could not be prolonged. Although he had not the clue to his patient's intense nervousness, Mr. Dowson's professional instincts warned him that he must go warily: and while he would willingly have detained Mrs. Herrick, if by such means he could enjoy the felicity of Toni's companionship a little longer, his conscientious spirit forced him to cut the sitting short.

Another appointment was made for the following week; and after that there were others, to all of which Toni accompanied her quaking friend.

After four or five visits, however, Toni was unlucky enough to contract a chill during an unusually prolonged motor-ride; and Mrs. Herrick was forced to go alone.

It was Leonard Dowson's intense consternation when told of Toni's illness which first opened Eva's eyes to the seriousness of his devotion. She had seen from the beginning that he admired the girl, that he listened attentively to her lightest word; but she had not realized that Mr. Dowson was really and irrevocably in love with Toni; and it is only fair to the young man to say that he was quite unconscious of his self-betrayal.

He had not been able to hide his anxiety on hearing of Toni's indisposition. With all the exaggeration of true love he immediately feared the worst; and even Eva's callous heart was touched by his incapacity to ask for news on the day of her second visit alone.

He had stammered out a broken question, exhibiting a rather absurd concern over an ordinary slight chill; and when Eva replied casually that she had heard Toni was going on very well, she noticed, with a half-contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt, that he had to turn aside and wipe away the drops which glistened on his high forehead.

It was during that second visit that an idea came to Eva, bringing a malicious little smile to her lips in the intervals of Leonard's ministrations.

"You've known Toni--Mrs. Rose--a long time, I suppose?" She asked the question casually as she put on her hat before the gla.s.s. "You were friends before her marriage, weren't you?"

"Yes. I had the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Rose some years before that."

"Really? You knew her as a child?"

"She was just fifteen when I saw her first," said Leonard, his voice husky with the emotion called up by the reminiscence. "It was her birthday, I remember, and one of her cousins asked me to go home to tea with him. They were great people for birthdays, her relations."

"Were they?" Eva adjusted her veil carefully. "Friendly, sociable sort of people, I suppose. Was Mr. Rose there that night?"

"Mr. Rose?" For a moment Leonard, lost in dreams of the past, stared uncomprehendingly. Then he pulled himself together vigorously. "No, Mr.

Rose was not there in those days. He--he came on the scene much later than that."

"Did he? Was he also a friend of Mrs. Rose's cousins?"

"Oh, no." Mr. Dowson became emphatic. "Nothing of that sort. Toni--Miss Gibbs she was then--met him in the course of business. As a matter of fact, she was his secretary. And then he fell in love with her; and the next thing was that they were married." His tone was dreary.

"Ah, well, I don't wonder he fell in love." Eva watched him closely through the mirror as she spoke. "I have no doubt Mrs. Rose had heaps of admirers at that time. Why, Mr. Dowson"--she spoke laughingly--"what were you about not to seize such a prize before an outsider sailed in and captured it?"

Leonard's pallor gave way to an unbecoming brick-red flush, and his voice shook as he replied:

"I ... I wasn't lucky, you see. I--I would have given my life for that girl, Mrs. Herrick, and she--she wouldn't have me at any price."

His tone of desperate sincerity told Eva all she wanted to know; and in a moment she switched the conversation back to safer ground.

"You needn't give your life for her, Mr. Dowson, but I'll tell you what you can do. You can lend me your _Punch_ to take her. I promised to bring her a copy from Dent's, and he is sold out."

Mr. Dowson was genuinely delighted to follow the suggestion and insisted on depleting the table in his waiting-room of various periodicals which might relieve the tedium of a day in bed; and Eva took the bundle amiably, promising to deliver them in person to Toni on her way home.

She fulfilled her mission punctually; and when Owen, unaware of her presence in the house, came to see how his wife was getting on, he found her bed literally strewn with the papers which should have soothed the fears of the quaking patients in Mr. Dowson's gloomy waiting-room.

"Hallo, Toni." He turned to her smilingly, after greeting Eva. "I hope you've got plenty to read. I didn't know you hankered after the ill.u.s.trated papers, or I'd have sent out for some. It's very good of Mrs. Herrick to bring you such an a.s.sortment."

"Ah, but these were sent by a friend of your wife's," smiled Eva sweetly. "I'm not the princ.i.p.al party in the transaction--I'm only the middleman."

"Really? Who has been so generous then?" asked Owen, taking up one of the papers at random as he spoke.

"Mr. Dowson, the dentist at Sutton," said Eva, turning her large Irish eyes on him pleasantly. "You know, of course, he is an old friend of Mrs. Rose's, and I must say he is a most gentle and satisfactory person in his work."

"A dentist? Dowson?" Owen's eyes roamed from Eva's face to Toni's, and something in the manner of both girls puzzled him. "I don't know him, do I, Toni? Is he really an old friend of yours? But you've never asked him here, have you?"

"He--he's not exactly an old friend," said Toni, annoyed to feel herself colouring. "I mean--oh, I've known him a long time in a way--he was a friend of the boys--my cousins, but that was all. And anyway he has not been here long."

"Oh." Owen was still vaguely perplexed by her manner. "Well, if he's a decent chap you must ask him over."

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't come." Toni spoke quickly. "He is not your sort, Owen. I mean--I don't think he would care to come. Do you, Mrs.

Herrick?"

Thus appealed to, Eva gave her verdict with a show of hesitation.

"N-no, I hardly think he would." She turned to Owen. "I don't think I would ask him, if I were you, Mr. Rose. I expect it would make him feel a little--well, awkward."

"But----" Owen did not know what to make of it. "You see, if he is sufficiently intimate with my wife to send her all these papers and things, it looks rather odd if I take no notice of him, doesn't it? I really think we must ask him over when Toni is herself again, eh, Toni?"

"I wouldn't, Mr. Rose." Eva threw a deep earnestness into her melodious Irish voice. "Really--it's not my business, of course, but if I were you I'd not bother about the matter."

She saw the look of uneasiness in Owen's eyes, and knew she had said enough.

"Is it really five o'clock!" She jumped up in pretended dismay. "And I promised Jim faithfully I'd be back by half-past four. He gets fidgety when I'm out of his sight for long--thinks I'm getting into mischief, I suppose."

She laughed rather hardly, and Owen felt an inner repulsion to the woman who could thus misconstrue her husband's consideration. He watched her bid Toni an effusive farewell and then escorted her downstairs, and stood talking to her for a few moments at the hall door.

Somehow he had never liked her so little as on this afternoon; and although he admitted that she was a pretty woman in her way, he told himself that her face was curiously unattractive.

She looked better now than on her first arrival in the neighbourhood, less haggard, a little plumper, but as he compared her dulled and faded beauty with Toni's youthful bloom he wondered, not for the first time, if her companionship were altogether innocuous.

He was still puzzling over the question when he re-entered Toni's room; and his first words showed her what was in his mind.

"Rather bad taste--that allusion to her husband's anxiety. Don't you think so, Toni? After all, he might well be uneasy about a woman who has once got into such serious mischief as she has done."

"Why? It's not likely to happen again." Toni, poring over _Punch_, spoke shortly.

"No, of course not." Owen hesitated, but as Toni evinced no signs of wishing to continue the conversation he went out of the room hurriedly, leaving his wife alone with the evidences of Mr. Dowson's good-will.

The next time Eva visited Toni she said jocularly:

"Well, I do think you're mean, Toni!" They had recently advanced to this stage of intimacy. "Fancy not telling me that Mr. Dowson had once proposed to you."

Toni, taken aback, blushed vividly.

"He didn't--at least--not exactly. I mean----"

"Oh, I know what you mean!" Eva laughed. "Of course you couldn't have accepted him--he's a nice fellow in his way, but impossible as a husband." At times Squire Payton's daughter was quite blatantly aristocratic. "But you might have told me, all the same."