"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." "Why? It doesn't matter--now." "Not to you, dear." Eva jeered lightly. "But the poor fellow is quite upset at meeting you again. He told me to-day he would never marry, and when I asked him why he said surely I could guess." "Very impertinent of him," said Toni sharply; and Eva smiled inwardly. "Oh, you mustn't blame him, Toni. I'm afraid it was my fault. We Irish are so sympathetic, you know--people always tell us their secrets. And anyhow there is nothing to be ashamed of. If he likes to go adoring you privately, you needn't be angry."