east of all one as mentally
alert, as open-eyed as Miss Loder, could have passed with him through
those strenuous hours in which his book was born without gaining a
pretty complete insight into his character.

And with knowledge came a new and less comprehensible emotion. At first
Miss Loder had accepted the fact of her employer's marriage as one
accepts any fixed tradition; and the subject rarely entered her thoughts
during working hours.

Gradually she began to feel a faint curiosity as to what manner of woman
Owen Rose's wife might be; and she welcomed her summons to Greenriver on
the ground that now she would be able to solve the problem for herself.
When she finally saw Toni, her first emotion was one of surprise that
this dark-eyed girl should be the mistress of Greenriver; and very
slowly that surprise died and was succeeded by a feeling of envy which
grew day by day. At first Miss Loder grudged the unconscious Toni her
established position as _chatelaine_ of this eminently desirable home;
and Toni's very simplicity, the youthful _insouciance_ with which she
filled that position, was an added annoyance. Later, Miss Loder began to
grudge Toni more than that. As she spent more and more time in Owen's
company, as she grew more and more intimate with the workings of his
mind, of his rich and poetic imagination, Miss Loder began to fall under
the spell of the man himself.

Quite unconsciously she was becoming ever more attracted by his manner,
his voice, his ways; and once or twice she found herself wondering, with
a kind of sick envy, in what light he appeared to the woman who was his
wife.

Through it all, however, Miss Loder's paramount emotion was one of envy
for the mistress of Greenriver. She used to think, as she came into the
house each morning, that it would have suited her much better, as a
background, than it would ever suit the quaint, childish-looking Toni;
and it grew almost unendurable to her to have to sit at the luncheon
table as a guest--not even that--and watch Toni's ridiculous assumption
of dignity as she sat in her high-backed chair opposite her husband.

There was no doubt about it that Greenriver would have suited Miss Loder
very well as a home; and she grew to dislike Toni more and more as the
full realization of the girl's good fortune penetrated her mind.

Toni had been quite right in detecting the malice beneath Millicent's
pretended friendliness. It seemed to Miss Loder that the only