"Toni!" In Owen's eyes a flame similar to that in her own had sprung to life. "What do you mean by this nonsense about Miss Loder? Let me tell you once and for all that I won't have it. You never cease libelling that unfortunate woman from morning to night. Considering she is here, in your house, in a subordinate position, your behaviour is both unladylike and ungenerous; and if you continue to talk in this way about a girl who has to earn her own living, and has never done you any harm--well, we shall quarrel, that's all." "I don't care if we do." Toni's hot temper--a heritage from her Italian mother--was let loose. "I'd sooner quarrel than submit to everything you like to do. If you loved me, treated me as you ought to treat your wife, you'd send her away. Oh, I'm not jealous in a silly way--I know you aren't likely to make love to her----" "_Toni!_" Owen's voice frightened her into silence. "Don't dare to put such a vulgar insinuation into words, if you please. If you are so lost to your own dignity and self-respect as your anger seems to imply, at least remember that you are my wife, and don't let me hear such a thoroughly degrading and unworthy remark from you again." "I _didn't_!" Toni, crimson-faced, had tears in her eyes. "I said I didn't think it. It's not fair of you to pretend I did.... I only meant----" "I'm afraid you don't know what you do mean," said Owen, his anger dying down at the sight of her tears. "But in any case we had better drop the subject." He paused for a moment, then something in Toni's forlorn aspect touched his heart and he spoke more kindly. "Come, Toni, don't let's make a scene over this. You're my wife, you know--I didn't marry you because I wanted a secretary, I married you because I wanted you for my wife----" "Even though you didn't love me." Toni spoke quietly, even a little sadly, and Owen's heart sank as he realized what her words implied. "I didn't love you?" For the life of him he did not know what to say. "No. I thought you did--but it doesn't matter," said Toni a little drearily. "I'm sorry I made a scene just now, Owen. Please forgive me. I won't do it again." And without waiting for a reply she opened the door and went out of the room, leaving Owen staring after her, stirred to the depths of his soul by something he thought he had read in her usually child-like eyes. It was no child who had gazed at him as she spoke those last few words. It was a woman who had looked through Toni's Southern eyes in that moment of stress; and for the first time since his marriage, Owen wondered whether his estimate of Toni had been incorrect after all.