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"To whom do you allude?" asked Owen coldly, his fastidious soul revolted by the spectacle which the young man presented. Dowson was hatless, dishevelled. In his agony of mind at Toni's departure he had torn his collar apart, feeling himself choking, and during the drive to Greenriver he had rumpled his hair so wildly that it stood up in mad disorder over his head.
The animal was so striking-looking, from her long, graceful head to her plumy tail, that Toni could not resist a second look; and the dog's master had a good view of the girl whom he guessed to be the young mistress of Greenriver, the house which he had often admired as he passed by in his boat during the summer days.
"Toni, what do you mean?" "I mean that I understand now. Lady Saxonby was the woman you were to have married. She is very beautiful," said Toni simply. "And she would have been the right mistress for Greenriver. I can't understand how it was you married me. Eva said when we were driving home that it must have been pique.
Also, she had intended to patronize the young mistress of Greenriver; and to find Mrs. Anstey, the only person in the district of whom she stood in awe, here before her had disturbed her mean little soul. Barry, quick as a woman in some matters, read her mind accurately, and immediately ranged himself on the side of his embarrassed hostess. "Are those shrimps, Mrs. Rose?
"Girls of that class are so pushing. But as a wife for Mr. Rose and the mistress of Greenriver she is eminently unsuitable." "Dreadfully so," sighed Lady Martin. "I feel so sorry for the poor man tied to a common, empty-headed little thing like that.
Unconsciously Owen pulled himself together. "Why should I say such a thing if I did not mean it?" "Because..." the old woman faltered "... Miss Gibbs ain't the sort of lady you ought to marry. She ... she's not like the other lady you were going to bring here as mistress of Greenriver ... the one as was presented at Court with all them lovely feathers in her hair."
She spoke a little shyly as the car came to a standstill at the foot of the steps leading to the big door. "This is your house?" "Yes, this is Greenriver." He helped her out of the car. "And here is my old friend Mrs. Blades coming to meet us." An elderly, rather prim-looking woman came forward as Owen advanced, and in her eyes shone a welcoming light. "Come in, sir.
She had rather a talent for housekeeping, and in a smaller establishment would doubtless have been a success; but at Greenriver there was little for her to do, and she knew quite well that the housekeeper resented any interference with her particular province.
Except on the occasion of Dowson's loan of magazines, Eva did not believe his name had ever been mentioned between the Roses; and certainly it would never enter Owen's head that his wife would go off, leave him, and leave all the glories of Greenriver, to share the lot of the inferior and unattractive Mr. Dowson.
Although the day was superb, a still, golden August day, when the summer seemed to pause, arrested in its flight by the fulness of perfection to which it had brought the land, neither Owen nor Toni was sorry to return to Greenriver.
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