"Come to terms with Bacchus!" Barney quite stared, taken aback by the irreverence. "Why should she! She'd have found somebody more worth while than either of the ruffians."
"I'm sure that if Bacchus had been fortunate enough to meet Miss Toner she'd have converted him to total abstinence in a jiffy and made a model husband of him. He was a fine, exhilarating fellow; no ruffian at all; quite worth reforming." Oldmeadow, as he thus embroidered his theme, was indulging in his own peculiar form of mirth.
He saw Miss Toner laying her hand on the head of Bacchus; Miss Toner very picturesque on the rugged sea-shore in her white and pearls and roses, and Bacchus dazed and penitent, his very leopards tamed to a cat-like docility. His laugh was visible rather than audible and that Miss Toner had never before been the subject of such mirth was evident to him.
She met whatever she saw or guessed of irreverence, however, as composedly as she would have met Bacchus; perhaps already, he reflected, she was beginning to think of him in the light of an undesirable wine-bibber. Perhaps even, she was beginning to think of him as a ruffian. He didn't mind in the least, so long as he succeeded in keeping off her solemnity.
"I should have been quite willing to try and reform him," she said; "though it takes much longer than a jiffy to reform people, Mr. Oldmeadow; but I shouldn't have been willing to marry him. There are other things in life, aren't there, than love-stories--even for women."
"Bravo!" said Oldmeadow. He felt as well as uttered it. She wasn't being solemn, and she had returned his shuttlecock smartly. "But are there?" he went on. He had adjusted his eyeglass for a clearer confrontation of her.
Miss Toner's large eyes, enlarged still further by the glass, met his, not solemnly, but with a considering gravity.
"You are a sceptic, Mr. Oldmeadow," she observed. "A satirist. Do you find that satire and scepticism take you very far in reading human hearts?"
"There's one for you, Roger!" cried Barney.
Oldmeadow kept his gaze fixed on Miss Toner. "You think that Ariane might prefer Infant Welfare work or Charity Organization to a love-story?"
"Not those necessarily." She returned his gaze. "Though I have known very fine big people who did prefer them. But they are not the only alternatives to love-stories."