"To say? Nothing." She lifted her eyes to his, and let them drop again, wearily, to the letter on her knee. "Oh, come, Toni, that's nonsense." Conscious of the irritation in his tone Owen paused, then spoke more gently. "Miss Loder is not the sort of person to imagine slights--she has been out in the world too long for that. But evidently she has clearly seen your antipathetic attitude towards her, and feels that in the circumstances she cannot remain." "I have never slighted Miss Loder." Toni, frightened, sounded defiant. "Not exactly. But you have shown _me_ very plainly that you resented her presence; and I suppose you have not been very careful to hide your--well, prejudice--from the girl herself." "She has no right to say such things," said Toni, a warm flush creeping up beneath her ivory pallor. "I have never been rude to her, as you seem to think. I have always hated her, I admit--always, from the first time I saw her; but----" "Ah, you acknowledge that." Owen pounced on the admission. "But why, Toni? Why should you hate the girl?" "Why? I don't know," said Toni recklessly. "Simply because I do, I suppose--because if I knew her for a hundred years I should never do anything but hate her." "And so, through your senseless jealousy, I'm to lose the best secretary I've ever had." Owen's tone was cold. "Really, Toni, I think you've gone a little too far this time. Quite apart from the fact that you must have behaved in a very childish and unladylike fashion to make the girl so uncomfortable, you have also done me an injury. If you didn't care for my work for its own sake--and I know neither the _Bridge_ nor my book has ever appealed to you--still I think you might have sacrificed your personal feelings just a little and considered my position in the matter." From her lowly seat on the fender, Toni looked up at him with a strange expression in her eyes. In truth, at that moment Toni's soul was a battlefield of conflicting emotions. Anger, defiance, resentment at what she considered her husband's injustice, were mingled with a great dread of Owen's displeasure; and a wild, miserable despair at the thought of his conception of her as indifferent to his aims and ideals. At one and the same moment she longed to hurl defiance into his face, and to cast herself, weeping, into his arms. But she did neither, only looked up at him with that inscrutable expression in her eyes, waiting for him to speak. "Now I suppose I shall have to look out for another secretary." Owen was annoyed and showed it. "Thank Heaven, the proofs are about finished, but this knocks the play on the head. I suppose I'll find someone else to help me, but the whole thing is very absurd and annoying." Suddenly Toni's self-control, already shaken by the meeting with Dowson, deserted her completely. She rose from her seat like a small whirlwind and confronted Owen with scarlet cheeks and blazing eyes.