ted her employer's wife.

"No--at least she doesn't mean to be," said Toni, striving to speak
fairly. "But I know she thinks I am a fool, and pities Owen for having
married me. I believe she thinks I ought never to speak to Owen, never
ask him any questions about the book. She was quite--short--with me
yesterday because I went in to speak to Owen during the afternoon!"

"Oh, but that's absurd!" Herrick felt a quite unreasonable dislike for
the superior Miss Loder. "After all you are his wife--she is only his
secretary--and husbands and wives have a claim on each other which no
sane person would deny."

"Yes." She did not look convinced, and he tried again.

"Don't forget, will you, that a wife holds an absolutely unique
position. She is the one person in the world to whom the man is
answerable for his actions, just as she is answerable to him for her
own; and if she is--hurt--or annoyed by any proceeding on the part of
her husband, she has a perfect right to express her wishes on the
subject."

"You mean I have a right to ask Owen to send away Miss Loder?" Toni was
always direct in her statements. "I suppose I have--if I wanted to--but
I don't. It isn't Miss Loder who makes me miserable. It's the whole
hopeless situation."

Her words startled him.

"Not hopeless, Mrs. Rose!"

"Why not?" In her eyes he read again that hint of a tortured woman soul
which he had glimpsed before. "It isn't very hopeful, is it? My husband
wants help and sympathy, which I cannot give him; and yet because he
married me he can't ask anyone else for it except in a business way."

"But--you don't mean:----" Herrick paused, aghast at the horrible idea
her words had conjured up; and Toni, with the new quickness which
suffering was teaching her, hastened to reassure him.

"Oh, I don't mean he wants to marry any other woman," she said proudly.
"I am his wife--unfortunately for him, perhaps, but he will always be
true to me. Besides, Miss Loder isn't that sort," she added, rather
vaguely.

"Then what----"

"Oh, you don't understand!" Her sad voice robbed the words of all
petulance. "Though you are most awfully kind--and clever--you see you
aren't married, Mr. Herrick, and that makes a difference."

"Who told you I was not married?" His tone was studiously quiet, yet the
girl looked at him quickly, wonderingly.

"I don't think anyone told me--but I thought you weren't." She
hesitated, then went on hurriedly. "I used to think that was