He turned homewards at length, dissatisfied and ill at ease, yet calling himself a fool for scenting a mystery that did not exist.



CHAPTER XI

SUSPICION

The Graydown Stables were always a model of well-ordered efficiency, and it had ever been Bunny's pride to show them to his friends. But he awaited General Melrose and his daughter on the following afternoon in a mood of some impatience. He had arrived early in the hope of finding Toby at liberty, but his young fiancee was nowhere to be found. She had gone out riding, Maud said, immediately after luncheon, and he realized with some disgust that he had forgotten to tell her on the previous day of his coming.

"She will be in to tea, dear," Maud said, and he was obliged to content himself with the prospect of seeing her and acquainting her with Saltash's energetic interest on their behalf after the visitors had gone. He had never felt less in the mood for entertaining casual friends than he felt on that sunny afternoon in September as he lounged in the wide stable-yard and waited for them. He had always liked Sheila Melrose, they had a good deal in common. But curiously enough it was that very fact that made him strangely reluctant to meet her now. In some inexplicable fashion, he found her simple directness disconcerting. Toby's words stuck obstinately in his mind, refusing to be dislodged. "She likes you well enough not to want you to marry me." He realized beyond question that those words had not been without some significance. It might be just instinct with her, as Toby had declared, but that Sheila regarded his engagement as a mistake he was fairly convinced. That she herself had any feeling for him beyond that of friendship he did not for a moment imagine. Bunny had no vanity in that direction. There was too much of the boy, too much of the frank comrade, in his disposition for that. They were pals, and the idea of anything deeper than palship on either side had never seriously crossed his mind. He was honest in all his ways, and his love for Toby—that wild and wonderful flower of first love—filled all his conscious thoughts to the exclusion of aught beside. The odd, sweet beauty of her had him in thrall. She was so totally different from everyone else he had ever encountered. He felt the lure of her more and more with every meeting, the wonder and the charm.

But Sheila did not want him to marry her, and a very natural feeling of irritation against her possessed him in consequence. Doubtless Sheila had a perfect right to her opinions, but she might keep them to herself. Between Saltash's headlong resolve to help and Sheila's veiled desire to hinder, he felt that his course was becoming too complicated, as if in spite of his utmost efforts to guide his own craft there were contrary currents at work that he was powerless to avoid.

He had an urgent desire for Toby that afternoon, and he was inclined somewhat unreasonably to resent her absence. But when at length the hoot of the General's car warned him of his visitors' advent as they turned in at the gate, he was suddenly conscious of a feeling of relief that he was alone. Toby was not at her ease with them. She fancied they disapproved of her, and whether the fancy were justified or not he was glad that she was not there to meet them. He determined to get the business over as quickly as possible.

Sheila in her dainty summer attire was looking even prettier than usual, and almost against his will Bunny noted the fact. Against his will also, his barely-acknowledged feeling of resentment vanished before he had been five minutes in her company. Sheila's charms went beyond mere prettiness. She had the tact and ready ease of manner which experience of the world alone can impart. She was sympathetic and quick of understanding. Without flattering, she possessed the happy knack of setting those about her at their ease. It was very rarely that she was roused to indignation; perhaps only Saltash knew how deep her indignation could be. And he was not the man to impart the knowledge to anyone else.

So on that warm September afternoon in her gracious way she restored Bunny's good humour and reinstated their friendship without effort, without apparent consciousness of any strain upon it. They went through the stables, and Bunny displayed his favourites with an enthusiasm of which he had not believed himself capable a little earlier. The stud had always been his great delight from boyhood, and both the General and his daughter took a keen interest in all they saw.

The time passed with astounding rapidity, and the chiming of the great stable-clock awoke Bunny at length to the fact that the afternoon was practically over.

"Maud will think we are never going in to tea," he said, with a laugh, turning back from the gate into the training field where they had been inspecting some of the colts. "You'll come round to the house, won't you? She is expecting you—said I was to be sure to bring you in."

Sheila smiled and accepted the invitation. "We were hoping to see Mrs. Bolton to say good-bye," she said. "Is Miss Larpent not here to-day?"

"Yes, she's out riding," Bunny said. "She may be in any moment. It's a pity Jake is away. He is expected back some time next week."

"Yes, I'm sorry to have missed him," said the General. "Tell him that I've enjoyed seeing the animals, and I think he has a very fine show! I never could understand how Saltash could bring himself to part with the stud."

"He's so seldom at home," said Bunny. "Yachting is much more in his line—though as a matter of fact he is at the Castle just now, came back yesterday."

"Is he indeed? Are you sure of that?" Sheila spoke with surprise. "I thought he meant to be away much longer."

"His intentions never last more than a couple of days," remarked the General with a touch of acidity. "Nothing he does ever surprises me."

"He's a very good chap," began Bunny. "He's been no end decent to me. Why,—" he broke off suddenly—"Hullo! There he is! And—Toby!"

Two figures had come suddenly round the corner of some stables, walking side by side. Both were in riding-dress, but the day being hot, the girl had discarded her long coat and was carrying it without ceremony over her arm. Her silk shirt was open at the neck, her soft hat pushed jauntily down on the side of her head. She was laughing as she came, and she looked like a merry little cow-boy straight from the prairies.

The man who moved beside her was laughing also. There was no grace about him, only that strange unstudied kingliness that had earned for him the title of "Rex." He was swift to see the advancing visitors and swept the hat from his head with a royal gesture of greeting.

Toby's face flushed deeply; she looked for the moment inclined to run away. Then with an impulse half-defiant, she restrained herself and caught back the smile that had so nearly vanished. She slapped the switch against her gaitered leg with boyish swagger and advanced.

A quick frown drew Bunny's forehead as he observed her attitude. He spoke impetuously, almost before they met.

"You look like a girl out of a comic opera. Why don't you put your coat on?"

Toby made a face at him. "Because it's cooler off. You can carry it if you like." She threw it to him nonchalantly with the words, and turned forthwith to Sheila. "Have you just been round the Stables? Grilling, isn't it? I've been exercising one of the youngsters. He nearly pulled my arms off. We've been practising some jumps."

"Then you shouldn't," put in Bunny. "The ground's too hard for jumping."

Toby turned upon him with a flash of temper. "No one asked for your opinion. I know a safe jump when I see one. Are you coming in to tea, Miss Melrose? I should think you're wanting it. Yes? What's the matter?"

She flung the two questions in a different tone, sharply, as though startled. Sheila was looking at her oddly, very intently, a species of puzzled recognition in her eyes.

Toby backed away from her, half-laughing, yet with something that was not laughter on her face. "What can be the matter?" she said. "Is it—is it my riding breeches? Here, Bunny! Let me have my coat!" She turned swiftly with extended arms. "Quick! Before Miss Melrose faints! I've given her the shock of her life."

"No! No!" protested Sheila, recovering. "Don't be absurd! You reminded me so vividly of someone, that's all. I don't quite know who even yet."

Bunny helped Toby into the coat without a word. There was grim displeasure on his face. The General and Saltash were talking together and for the moment they three stood there alone.

Toby turned round laughing. "How ridiculous you are!" she said to Bunny. "You've seen me in this get-up heaps of times before—and will again. Miss Melrose, I forgot you hadn't. I'm horribly sorry to have shocked you. Shall we go in for tea now?"

The puzzled look was still in Sheila's eyes though she smiled in answer. "I am not shocked—of course," she said. "But—but—"

"Yes?" said Toby.

She spoke in the same brief, staccato note; the word was like a challenge. Saltash turned suddenly round.

"I have just been complimenting Miss Larpent on the excellence of her get-up," he said lightly. "We met at the gate on the downs, and I have been witnessing some very pretty horsemanship. Miss Melrose, I hear you are leaving tomorrow, and am quite desolated in consequence. It is always my luck to be left behind."

The hard little smile that only he could ever provoke was on Sheila's lips as she turned to him.

"For such a rapid rider, you are indeed unfortunate," she said.

He laughed with careless effrontery. "Yes, the devil usually takes the hindmost,—so I've been told. Miss Larpent anyway is quite safe, for she will always be an easy first."

"There is such a thing as going too fast," commented Bunny.

"There is such a thing as getting away altogether," flung back Toby with spirit.

Bunny's eyes flashed into sudden, ominous flame. He could not have said why the contrast between the two girls—the one in her dainty summer attire and the other in her boyish riding-kit—had such an effect upon him, but for the moment it almost infuriated him.

Toby saw it, and her own eyes lit in response. She stood waiting for his rejoinder—the spirit of mischief incarnate, wary, alert, daring him.

But Bunny did not speak in answer. He drew in a hard breath through teeth that gripped his lower lip, and restrained himself. The next instant he had turned away.

"Oh, damn!" said Toby, and swung upon her heel.

Saltash and the General walked beside her, rallying her. But Bunny and Sheila came behind in silence.



CHAPTER XII

THE ALLY

They found Maud awaiting them in the long low room that overlooked her favourite view of the down. Saltash entered as one who had the right, and she greeted him with momentary surprise but evident pleasure.

"I couldn't spend twenty-four hours at Burchester without calling upon you," he said.

"You know you are always welcome," she made answer, with the smile which only her intimate friends ever saw.

They sat down by one of the wide French windows and General Melrose began to occupy his hostess's attention. Sheila took a chair that Bunny pushed forward, and Saltash glanced round for Toby. She was sitting on the end of a couch, playing with the silky ears of the old red setter. Her hat was flung down beside her; her pretty face downcast. He crossed to her deliberately and bent also to fondle the dog.

She started slightly at his coming, and a faint flush rose in her cheeks; but she neither glanced at him nor spoke.

For the moment they were alone, unobserved by the laughing group at the window. Saltash bent suddenly lower. His quick whisper came down to her:

"Go and put on the most girlish thing you've got!"

She looked up at him then, her blue eyes seeking his. A rapid flash of understanding passed between them. Then, without a word she rose.

When Maud looked round for her a few seconds later, Saltash was lounging alone against the sofa-head pulling Chops absently by the ear while he stared before him out of the window in a fit of abstraction that seemed to her unusual.

She called to him to join them at the tea-table, and he jerked himself to his feet and came across to her with the monkeyish grin on his face that she had learned long since to regard as the shield wherewith he masked his soul.

He sat down by her side, devoting himself to her with the gallantry that always characterized him when with her. No one seemed to notice that Toby had disappeared. They talked about the horses, about Jake and his recent victories, about the season at Fairharbour, about the Melroses' plans for the winter.

When questioned by the General on this subject, Saltash declared airily that he never made any.

"If I do, I never stick to them, so what's the use?" he said.

"How weak of you!" said Maud.

And he threw her the old half-tender, half-audacious look, and tossed the subject banteringly away.

He was the first to make a move when the careless meal was over, but not to go. He sauntered forth and lounged against the door-post smoking, while Bunny and Sheila talked of tennis and golf, and Maud listened with well-disguised patience to the old General's oft-repeated French reminiscences.

And then when the tea was cold and forgotten and Sheila was beginning to awake to the fact that it was growing late, there came a sudden, ringing laugh across the lawn and Toby scampered into view with little Molly on her shoulder and Eileen running by her side. She was dressed in white, and she looked no more than a child herself as she danced across the grass, executing a fairy-like step as she came. The tiny girl's tinkling laughter mingled with hers. Her little hands were fondly clasped about the girl's neck; she looked down into her face with babyish adoration while Eileen, the elder child, gazed upward with a more serious devotion.

General Melrose interrupted his narrative to look at the advancing trio. "My Jove, Mrs. Bolton," he said, "but that's a pretty sight!"

Sheila also ceased very suddenly to converse with Bunny, while Saltash made a scarcely perceptible movement as though he braced and restrained himself in the same instant.

"The prettiest picture I've seen for years!" vowed the General. "How that little Larpent girl changes! She is like a piece of quicksilver. There's no getting hold of her. How old is she?"

"She is nearly twenty," said Bunny with the swiftness of ownership.

"Nearly twenty! You don't say so! She might be fourteen at the present moment. Look at that! Look at it!" For Toby was suddenly whizzing like a butterfly across the lawn in a giddy flight that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, the little girl still upon her shoulder, the elder child standing apart and clapping her hands in delighted admiration.

"Yes, she is rather like fourteen," Maud said, with her tender smile. "Do you know what she did the other day? It was madness of course, and my husband was very angry with her. I was frightened myself though I have more faith in her than he has. She climbs like a cat, you know, and she actually took both those children up to a high bough of the old beech tree; I don't know in the least how she did it. None of the party seemed to think there was any cause for alarm till Jake came on the scene. He fetched them down with a ladder—all but Toby who went higher and pelted him with beech nuts till he retreated—at my urgent request."

"And what happened after that?" questioned Saltash, with his eyes still upon the dancing figure. "From what I have observed of Jake, I should say that an ignominious retreat is by no means in his line."

Maud laughed a little. "Oh, Jake can be generous when he likes. He had it out with her of course, but he wasn't too severe. Ah, look! She is going to jump the sun dial!"

Sheila turned to her. "Surely you are nervous! If she fell, the little one might be terribly hurt."

"She won't fall," Maud said with confidence.

And even as she spoke, Toby leapt the sun dial, leaving the ground as a bird leaves it, without effort or any sort of strain, and alighting again as a bird alights from a curving flight with absolute freedom and a natural adroitness of movement indescribably pleasant to watch.

"A very pretty circus trick!" declared the General, and even Bunny's clouded brow cleared a little though he said nothing.

"A circus trick indeed!" said Sheila, as if speaking to herself. "How on earth did she do it?"

"She is like a boy in many ways," said Maud.

Sheila looked at her. "Yes. She is just like a boy, or at least—" Her look went further, reached Saltash who lounged on Maud's other side, and fell abruptly away.

As Toby came up with the two children, all of them flushed and laughing, Toby herself in her white frock looking like a child just out of school, she rose and turned to Bunny.

"We ought to go now," she said. "I am going to fetch the car round for Dad."

"I'll do it," he said.

But she went with him as he had known she would. They left the group at the window and moved away side by side in silence as they had walked that afternoon.

Saltash stood up and addressed Maud. "I'm going too. Bunny is dining with me tonight. I suppose you won't come?"

She gave him her hand, smiling. "I can't thank you. Ask me another day! You and Bunny will really get on much better without me."

"Impossible!" he declared gallantly, but he did not press her.

He turned to the General and took his leave.

Toby and the two children walked the length of the terrace with him, all chattering at once. She seemed to be in a daring, madcap mood and Saltash laughed and jested with her as though she had been indeed the child she looked. Only at parting, when she would have danced away, he suddenly stopped her with a word.

"Nonette!"

She stood still as if at a word of command; there had been something of compulsion in his tone.

He did not look at her, and the smile he wore was wholly alien to the words he spoke.

"Be careful how you go! And don't see Bunny again—till I have seen him!"

A hard breath went through Toby. She stood like a statue, the two children clasping her hands. Her blue eyes gazed at him with a wide questioning. Her face was white.

"Why? Why?" she whispered at length.

His look flashed before her vision like the grim play of a sword. "That girl remembers you. She will give you away. She's probably at it now. I'll see him—tell him the truth if necessary. Anyhow—leave him to me!"

"Tell him—the truth?" The words came from her like a cry. There was a sudden terror in her eyes. He made a swift gesture of dismissal. "Go, child! Go! Whatever I do will make it all right for you. I'm standing by. Don't be afraid! Just—go!"

It was a definite command. She turned to obey, the little girls still clinging to her. The next moment she was running lightly back with them, and Saltash turned in the opposite direction and passed out of sight round the corner of the house on his way to the stable-yard.



CHAPTER XIII

THE TRUTH

He went with careless tread as his fashion was, whistling the gay air to which all England was dancing that season. His swarthy countenance wore the half-mischievous, half-amused expression with which it was his custom to confront—and baffle—the world at large. No one knew what lay behind that facile mask. Only the very few suspected that it hid aught beyond a genial wickedness of a curiously attractive type.

His spurs rang upon the white stones, and Sheila Melrose, standing beside her father's car in the shadow of some buildings, turned sharply and saw him. Her face was pale; it had a strained expression. But it changed at sight of him. She regarded him with that look of frozen scorn which once she had flung him when they had met in the garish crowd at Valrosa.

Bunny was stooping over the car, but he became aware of Saltash almost in the same moment, and stood up straight to face him. Sheila was pale, but he was perfectly white, and there were heavy drops of perspiration on his forehead. He looked full at Saltash with eyes of blazing accusation.

Saltash's face never changed as he came up to the car. He ceased to whistle, but the old whimsical look remained. He seemed unaware of any tension.

"Car all right?" he asked smoothly. "Can I lend a hand? The general is beginning to move."

Sheila turned without a word and got into the car.

Bunny neither moved nor spoke. He stood like a man paralysed. It was Saltash who, with that royal air of amusing himself, stooped to the handle and started the engine.

The girl at the wheel did not even thank him. She looked beyond. Only as he stood aside and the car slid forward, she turned stiffly to Bunny.

"Good-bye!" she said.

He made a jerky movement. Their eyes met for a single second. "You will write?" he said.

His throat was working spasmodically, the words seemed to come with gigantic effort. She bent her head in answer and passed between them through the white gate into the drive that led round to the house.

Saltash turned with a lightning movement to Bunny. "Walk back with me and we can talk!" he said.

Bunny drew sharply back. The movement was one of instinctive recoil. But still no words came. He stood staring at Saltash, and he was trembling from head to foot.

"Don't be an ass now!" Saltash said, and his voice was oddly gentle, even compassionate. "You've stumbled on a mare's nest. It's all right. I can explain."

Bunny controlled himself with a jerk. His face was like death, but he found his voice. "You can keep your damned lies to yourself," he said. "I've no use for them."

The prod of a riding-switch against his shoulder made him start as a spirited animal starts at the touch of a spur. But Saltash only laughed.

"You'll fight me for that!" he said.

"I wouldn't touch you!" flung back Bunny.

"Oh, wouldn't you?" The odd eyes mocked him openly. "Then you withdraw the insult—with apologies?"

"Apologise—to you!" said Bunny.

"Or fight!" said Saltash. "I think that would do you more good than the other, but you shall decide."

"I will do neither," said Bunny, and turned his back with the words. "I've—done with you."

"You're wrong!" said Saltash. "You've got to face it, and you won't get the truth from anyone but me. That girl knows nothing, Bunny!" His voice was suddenly curt, with that in it which very few ever heard. "Turn around! Do you hear? Turn round—damn you! I'll kick you if you don't!"

Bunny turned. It was inevitable. They stood face to face. Then Saltash, the mockery gone from his eyes, reached out abruptly and gripped him by the arm. His touch was electric. For that moment—only for that moment—he was dangerous. There was something of the spring of a tiger in his action.

"You damn fool!" he said, and he spoke between his teeth. "Do you suppose even I would play such a blackguard's game as that?"

"Let me go!" Bunny said through white lips. "Facts are facts."

Saltash's hold did not slacken. "Where's Jake?" he said.

"Jake's away."

"Confound him! Just when he's wanted!" The ferocity died out of Saltash like the glow from cinders blown from a furnace. "Well, listen! I swear to you by all that is sacred that you're making a mistake. Sheila has told you a certain thing that is true, so far as it goes. But you've let your imagination run away with you. The rest is false."

He spoke with an emphasis that carried weight, and Bunny was moved in spite of himself. His own fire died down.

Saltash saw his advantage and pressed it. "If Jake were here, he'd tell you I was speaking the truth, and you'd believe him. You're on a wrong scent. So far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to follow it to blazes. I'm used to pleasantries of that sort from my friends. But I'm damned if I'll let that child be tripped for nothing. Do you hear, Bunny?" He shook the arm he gripped impatiently. "I'll see you in hell first!"

Bunny's mouth twisted with a painful effort to smile. "I'm in hell now," he said.

"Why the devil did you listen?" said Saltash. "Look here! We've got to have this thing out. Send a man along with my horse and walk across the park with me!"

He had gained his point by sheer insistence, and he knew it. Bunny knew it also and cursed himself for a weak fool as he moved to comply. With Saltash's blade through his heart, he yet could somehow find it possible to endure him.

He went with him in silence, hating the magnetism he found it impossible to resist. They passed through the shrubberies that skirted the house, and so to the open down.

Then in his sudden fashion, crudely and vehemently, Saltash began his defence.

"It's not my way," he said, "to give an answer to any man who questions; but you haven't stooped to question. So I tell you the truth. Sheila saw Toby working as a page at the Casino Hotel at Valrosa. That right? I thought so. It's the whole matter in a nutshell. I must have seen her too, but never noticed her till my last night in the place. Then I found Antonio hammering the poor little beggar out in the garden, and I stopped it. You'd have done the same. Afterwards, late that night, I went on board the yacht and found her down in the saloon—a stowaway. The yacht had started. I could have put back. I didn't. You wouldn't have done either. She took refuge with me. I sheltered her. She came to me as a boy. I treated her as such."

"You knew?" flung in Bunny.

Saltash's grin flashed across his dark features like a meteor through a cloudy sky and was gone. "I—suspected, mon ami. But—I did not even tell myself." That part of him that was French—a species of volatile sentimentality—sounded in the words like the echo of a laugh in a minor key. "I made a valet of her. I suffered her to clean my boots and brush my clothes. I kept her in order—with this—upon occasion."

He held up the switch he carried.

"I don't believe it," said Bunny bluntly.

Saltash's shoulders went up. "You please yourself, mon cher. I am telling you the truth. I treated her like a puppy. I was kind to her, but never extravagantly kind. But I decided—eventually I decided—that it was time to turn home. No game can last forever. So we returned, and on our last night at sea we were rammed and sunk. Naturally that spoilt—or shall I say somewhat precipitated?—my plans. We were saved, the two of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, mon ami, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it if you had, I'll wager."

He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's. He moved heavily, staring straight before him, his face drawn in hard lines of misery.

"Well," Saltash said, "that's all I have done. You now know the truth, simple and unadorned, as Sheila Melrose in her simplicity does not know it and probably would not comprehend it if she did."

"Leave her out of it!" said Bunny, in a strangled voice. "It was—the obvious conclusion."

"Oh, the obvious!" Cynicism undisguised caught up the word. "Only the young and innocent can ever really say with any conviction what is the obvious way of blackguards. You don't know it—neither do I. A single decent impulse on the part of a blackguard can upset all the calculations of the virtuous. Oh, Bunny, you fool, what do you want to wreck things for at this stage? Can't you see you've got a gift from the gods? Take it, man, and be thankful that you're considered worthy of it!"

Bunny made a sharp movement of protest. Saltash was looking at him with half-humorous compassion as one looks at a child with a damaged toy, and he was keenly conscious of being at a disadvantage. But though checked, he was not defeated. Saltash had made out a case for himself. He had in a measure vindicated Toby. But that was not the end of the matter.

He stopped and faced him. "Why were you so anxious for me to marry her?" he said. "I've got to know that."

He was instantly aware that Saltash eluded him, even though he seemed to meet his look as he made reply. "You are quite welcome to know it, mon ami. I chance to take a fatherly interest in you both."

Bunny flinched a little. Something in the light reply had pierced him though he could not have said how. "That's all?" he asked rather thickly.

"That is quite all," said Saltash, and faintly smiled—the smile of the practised swordsman behind the blade.

Bunny stood for some moments regarding him, his boyish face stern and troubled. Up to that point, against his will, he had believed him; from it, he believed him no longer. But—he faced the truth however it might gall him—he was pitted against a skilled fencer, and he was powerless. Experience could baffle him at every turn.

"Do you tell me you have never realized that she cared for you?" he blurted forth abruptly, and there was something akin to agony in his utterance of the words. He knew that he was baring his breast for the stroke as he forced them out.

But Saltash did not strike. Just for an instant he showed surprise. Then—quite suddenly he lowered his weapon. He faced Bunny with a smile of comradeship.

"Quite honestly, Bunny," he said, "if I had realized it, it wouldn't have made any difference. I have no use for sentimental devotion at my age. She has never been more to me than—a puppy that plays with your hand."

"Ah," Bunny said, and swung away from him with the words. "I suppose that is how you treat them all. Women and dogs—they're very much alike."

"Not in every respect," said Saltash. "I should say that Toby is an exception anyway. She knows play from earnest."

"Does she?" said Bunny. He paused a moment, as if trying to concentrate his forces; then he turned to Saltash again. "I'm going back now. I can't dine with you—though I've no desire to quarrel. But you see—you must understand—that I can never—accept anything from you again. I'm sorry—but I can't."

"What are you going to do?" said Saltash.

Bunny hesitated, his boyish face a white mask of misery.

Saltash reached out a second time and touched him lightly, almost caressingly, with the point of his switch. "What's the matter with you, Bunny?" he said. "Think I've lied to you?"

Bunny met his look. "I don't want to quarrel with you," he said. "It isn't—somehow it isn't—worth it."

"Thanks!" said Saltash, and briefly laughed. "You place my friendship at a pretty high figure then. Tell me what you're going to do!"

"What is it to you what I do?" A quick gleam shone for an instant in Bunny's eyes, dispelling the look of stricken misery. "I'm not asking you to help me."

"I've grasped that," said Saltash. "But even so, I may be able to lend a hand. As you say, there is not much point in our quarrelling. There's nothing to quarrel about that I can see—except that you've called me a liar for no particular good reason!"

"Do you object to that?" said Bunny.

Saltash made a careless gesture. "Perhaps—-as you say—it isn't worth it. All the same, I've a certain right to know what you propose to do, since, I gather, I have not managed to satisfy you."

"A right!" flashed Bunny.

"Yes, a right." Saltash's voice was suddenly and suavely confident. "You may forget—or possibly you may remember—that I gave my protection to Nonette on the day she came to me for it, and I have never withdrawn it since. What matters to her—matters to me."

"I see." Bunny stood stiffly facing him. "I am responsible to you, am I?"

"That is what I am trying to convey," said Saltash.

The fire in Bunny's eyes leapt high for a moment or two, then died down again. Had Jake been his opponent, he would have flung an open challenge, but somehow Saltash, with whom he had never before striven in his life, was less easy to resist. In some subtle fashion he seemed able to evade resistance and yet to gain his point.

He gained his point on this occasion. Almost before he knew it, Bunny had yielded.

"I am going to her," he said, "to ask her for the whole truth—about her past."

"Is any woman capable of telling the truth to that extent?" questioned Saltash.

"I shall know if she doesn't," said Bunny doggedly.

"And will that help?" The note of mockery that was never long absent from his voice sounded again. "Isn't it possible—sometime—to try to know too much? There is such a thing as looking too closely, mon ami. And then we pay the price."

"Do you imagine I could ever be satisfied not knowing?" said Bunny.

Saltash shrugged his shoulders. "I merely suggested that you are going the wrong way to satisfy yourself. But that is your affair, not mine. The gods have sent you a gift, and because you don't know what it is made of, you are going to pull it to pieces to find out. And presently you will fling it away because you cannot fit it together again. You don't realize—you never will realize—that the best things in life are the things we never see and only dimly understand."

A vein of sincerity mingled with the banter in his voice, and Bunny was aware of a curious quality of reverence, of something sacred in a waste place.

It affected him oddly. Convinced though he was that in one point at least Saltash had sought to deceive him it yet influenced him very strongly in Saltash's favour. Against his judgment, against his will even, he saw him as a friend.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said, speaking slowly, his eyes upon the swarthy, baffling countenance, "that you have never even tried to know where she came from—what she is?"

Saltash made a quick gesture as of remonstrance. "Mon ami, the last I have always known. The first I have never needed to know."

"Then," Bunny spoke with difficulty, but his look never wavered, "tell me—as before God—tell me what you believe her to be!"

"What I know her to be," corrected Saltash, "I will tell you—certainly. She is a child who has looked into hell, but she is still—a child."

"What do you mean?" questioned Bunny.

Saltash's eyes, one black, one grey, suddenly flashed a direct challenge into his own. "I mean," he said, "that the flame has scorched her, but it has never actually touched her."

"You know that?" Bunny's voice was hoarse. There was torture in his eyes. "Man—for God's sake—the truth!"

"It is the truth," Saltash said.

"How do you know it? You've no proof. How can you be sure?" He could not help the anguish of his voice. The words fell harsh and strained.

"How do I know it?" Saltash echoed the words sharply. "What proof? Bunny, you fool, do you know so little of the world—of women—as that? What proof do you need? Just—look into her eyes!"

A queer note of passion sounded in his own voice, and it told Bunny very clearly that he was grappling with the naked truth at last. It arrested him in a moment. He suddenly found that he could go no further. There was no need.

Impulsively, with an inarticulate word of apology, he thrust out his hand. Saltash's came to meet it in a swift, hard grip.

"Enough?" he asked, with that odd, smiling grimace of his that revealed so little.

And, "Yes, enough!" Bunny said, looking him straight in the face.

They parted almost without words a few minutes later. There was no more to be said.



CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST CARD

Saltash dined alone that night. He was in a restless mood and preoccupied, scarcely noticing what was put before him, pushing away the wine untasted. In the end he rose from the table almost with a gesture of disgust.

"I'm going to smoke on the ramparts," he said to the decorous butler who waited upon him. "If anyone should call to see me, let them wait in the music-room!"

"Very good, my lord! And where would you like to take coffee?" enquired the man sedately.

Saltash laughed. "Not on the ramparts—emphatically. I'll have mercy on you to that extent. Put it on the spirit-lamp in the music-room, and leave it! You needn't sit up, any of you. I'll put out the lights."

"Very good, my lord."

The man withdrew, and Saltash chose a cigar. An odd grimace drew his features as he lighted it. He had the look of a man who surveys his last card and knows himself a loser. Though he went out of the room and up the great staircase to the music-room with his head up and complete indifference in his carriage, his eyelids were slightly drawn. He did not look as if he had enjoyed the game.

A single red lamp lighted the music-room, and the long apartment looked dim and ghostly. He stood for a moment as he entered it and looked round, then with a scarcely perceptible lift of the shoulders he passed straight through to the curtain that hung before the door leading to the turret. The darkness of the place gaped before him, and he turned back with a muttered word and recrossed the room. There were Persian rugs upon the floor, and his feet made no sound. He went to the mantel-piece and, feeling along it, found a small electric torch. The light of it flared before him as he returned. The door yielded to his touch and swung shut behind him. He passed into vault-like silence.

The stone steps gave back the sound of his tread as he mounted, with eerie, wandering echoes. The grey walls glimmered with a ghostly desolation around him. Halfway up, he stopped to flick the ash from his cigar, and laughed aloud. But the echoes of his laughter sounded like voices crying in the darkness. He went on more swiftly, like a phantom imprisoned and seeking escape. The echoes met him and fell away behind him. The loneliness was like a curse. The very air felt dead.

He reached the top of the turret at last, and the heavy door that gave upon the ramparts. With a sound that was almost a gasp, he pushed it open, and passed out into the open air.

A full moon was shining, and his acres lay below him—a wonderful picture in black and silver. He came to the first gap in the battlements, mounted the parapet, and stood there with a hand resting on each side.

The wash of the sea came murmurously through the September silence. His restless eyes flashed hither and thither over the quiet scene, taking in every detail, lingering nowhere. The pine trees stirred in the distance below him, seeming to whisper together, and an owl hooted with a weird persistence down by the lake. It was like the calling of a human voice—almost like a cry of distress. Then it ceased, and the trees were still again.

The spell of the silence fell like the falling of a curtain. The loneliness crept about his heart.

He took the cigar from his mouth and spoke, ironically, grimly.

"There is your kingdom, Charles Rex!" he said.

He turned with the words and leaped down upon the narrow walk between the battlements. The owl began to call again, but the desolation remained. He paced forward with his hands behind him, his head bent. No one could see him here. The garment of mockery could be flung aside. He was like a prisoner tramping the stone walls from which he could never escape.

He paused once to toss away his cigar, but he did not look out again over the fair prospect of his lands. He was looking at other things, seeing the vast emptiness of a life that had never been worth while stretching behind and before him. Like a solitary traveller pausing in the heart of the desert, he stood to view the barrenness around him.

He had travelled far, had pursued many a quest with ardour; but the ardour had all gone out of him now. Only the empty solitude remained. He had lived a life of fevered variety, he had drunk deep of many waters; but he had never been satisfied. And now it seemed to him that all he had ever looked upon, all he had ever achieved, was mirage. Nothing of all that he had ever striven for was left. The fruit had turned to ashes in his mouth, and no spring remained whereat to quench his thirst.

Perhaps few men have ever realized the utter waste of wickedness as Charles Rex realized it that night. He met it whichever way he turned. To gratify the moment's whim had ever been his easy habit. If a generous impulse had moved him, he had gratified that also. But it had never been his way to sacrifice himself—until a certain night when a child had come to him, wide-eyed and palpitating like a driven bird, and had sought shelter and protection at his hands.

That, very curiously, had been the beginning of a new era in his life. It had appealed to him as nothing had ever appealed before. He had never tasted—or even desired—the Dead Sea fruit again. Something had entered his being on that night which he had never been able to cast out, and all other things had been dwarfed to insignificance.

He faced the fact as he paced his castle walls. The relish had gone out of his life. He was gathering what he had sown, and the harvest was barren indeed.

Time passed; he walked unheeding. If he spent the whole night on the ramparts, there was no one to know or care. It was better than tossing sleepless under a roof. He felt as if a roof would suffocate him. But sheer physical weariness began to oppress even his elastic frame at last. He awoke to the fact that he was dead tired.

He sat down in an embrasure between the battlements, and drifted into the numb state between waking and sleeping in which visions are born. For a space nothing happened, then quite suddenly, rising as it were out of a void, a presence entered his consciousness, reached and touched his spirit. Intangibly, but quite unmistakably, he was aware of the summons, of a voice that spoke within his soul.

He lifted his head and looked about him. Emptiness, stark emptiness, was all he saw. Yet, in a moment, as though a hand had beckoned, he arose. Without a backward glance he traversed the distance that lay between him and the turret-door. He went through it into utter darkness, and in utter darkness began the descent.

A shaft of moonlight smote through a slit in the stone wall as he rounded the corner of the stair. It lay like a shining sword across his path, and for a second he paused. Then he passed over it, sure-footed and confident, and plunged again into darkness. When he reached the end of the descent, he was breathing heavily, and his eyes were alight with a strange fire. He pulled upon the door and put aside the thick curtain with the swift movements of a man who can brook no delay. He passed into the long, dim room beyond with its single red lamp burning at the far end. He prepared to pass on to the door that led out upon the gallery and so to the grand staircase. But before he had gone half-a-dozen paces he stopped. It was no sound that arrested, no visible circumstance of any sort. Yet, as if at a word of command, he halted. His quick look swept around the room like the gleam of a rapier, and suddenly he swung upon his heel, facing that still, red light.

Seconds passed before he moved again. Then swiftly and silently he walked up the room. Close to the lamp was a deep settee on which the spots of a leopard skin showed in weird relief. At one end of the settee, against the leopard skin, something gold was shining. Saltash's look was fixed upon it as he drew near.

He reached the settee treading noiselessly. He stood beside it, looking down. And over his dark face with its weary lines and cynical mouth, its melancholy and its bitterness, there came a light such as neither man nor woman had ever seen upon it before. For there before him, curled up like a tired puppy, her tumbled, golden hair lying in ringlets over the leopard skin, was Toby, asleep in the dim, red lamplight.

For minutes he stood and gazed upon her before she awoke. For minutes that strange glory came and went over his watching face. He did not stir, did not seem even to breathe. But the fact of his presence must have pierced her consciousness at last, for in the end quite quietly, supremely naturally, the blue eyes opened and fixed upon him.

"Hullo!" said Toby sleepily. "Time to get up?"

And then, in a moment, she had sprung upright on the couch, swift dismay on her face.

"I—I thought we were on the yacht! I—I—I never meant to go to sleep here! I came to speak to you, sir. I wanted to see you."

He put a restraining hand upon her thin young shoulder, and his touch vibrated as with some unknown force controlled.

"All right, Nonette!" he said, and his voice had the same quality; it was reassuring but oddly unsteady. "Sorry I kept you waiting."

She looked at him. Her face was quivering. "I've had—a hell of a time," she said pathetically. "Been here hours—thought you'd never come. Your man—your man said I wasn't to disturb you."

"Damn the fool!" said Saltash.

She broke into a breathless laugh. "That's—that's just what I said. But I thought—I thought perhaps—you'd rather—rather I waited." She shivered suddenly. "I don't like this place. Can you take me somewhere else?"

He bent lower, put his hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet. She came up from the couch with a spring, and stood before him, half-daring and half-shy.

Saltash kept his hold upon her arm, and turned her towards the wall beside the tall mantel-piece. She went with him readily enough, watching, eager-eyed, as he stretched his free hand up to the oak panelling.

"Now I'm going to find out all your secrets!" she said boyishly.

"Not quite all," said Saltash.

There came the click of a spring and the panel slid to one side, leaving a long, narrow opening before them. Toby glanced up at him and, with a small, nestling movement, slipped within the circle of his arm. It tightened upon her in an instant, and she laughed again, a quivering, exultant laugh.

"I'm glad you've come," she said.

They paused on the edge of darkness, but there was no hesitation about Toby. She was all athrill with expectancy. Then in a flash the room before them was illuminated, and they entered.

It was a strange chamber, panelled, built in the shape of a cone. A glass dome formed its roof, and there was no window besides. The lights were cunningly concealed behind a weirdly coloured fresco of Oriental figures. But one lamp alone on a small table burned with a still red glow. This lamp was supported on the stuffed skin of a hooded cobra.

Toby's eyes were instantly drawn towards it. They shone with excitement. Again she glanced up at the man beside her.

"What a wonderful place!"

"Better than the music-room?" suggested Saltash.

"Oh, yes, far better." Her shining eyes sought his. "It might be your cabin on the yacht."

He stretched a hand behind him and again the spring clicked. Then he drew her forward. They trod on tiger skins. Everywhere were tiger skins, on the floor and on a deep low settee by the table which was the only other furniture the room possessed. Toby was clinging to the arm that held her, clinging very closely. There was unspoken entreaty in her hold. For there was something about Saltash at the moment, something unfamiliar and unfathomable that frightened her. His careless drollery, his two-edged ironies, were nought to her; but his silence was a barrier unknown that she could not pass. She could only cling voicelessly to the support he had not denied her.

He brought her to the settee and stood still. His face was strangely grim.

"Well—Toby?" he said.

She twisted in his hold and faced him, but she kept his arm wound close about her, her hand tight gripped on his. "Are you—angry with me for coming?" she asked him quiveringly. "I—had to come."

He looked down into her eyes. "Bien, petite! Then you need—a friend," he said.

Her answering look was piteous. "I need—you," she said.

One of the old gay smiles flashed across his face. He seemed to challenge her to lightness. The grimness went out of his eyes like a shadow.

"And so you have come, ma mignonette, at the dead of night—at the risk of your reputation—and mine—"

Toby made an excruciating grimace, and broke impulsively in upon him. "It wasn't the dead of night when I started. I've been waiting hours—hours. But it doesn't matter. I've found you—at last. And you can't send me away now—like you did before—because—because—well, I've no one to go to. You might have done it if you'd come down earlier. But you can't do it—now." Her voice thrilled on a high note of triumph. "You've got to keep me—now. I've come—to stay."

"What?" said Saltash. He bent towards her, looking closely into her face. "Got to keep you, have I? What's that mean? Has Bunny been a brute to you? I could have sworn I'd made him understand."

She laughed in answer. "Bunny! I didn't wait to see him!"

"What?" Saltash said again.

She reached up a quick, nervous hand and laid it against his breast. Her eyes, wide and steadfast, never flinched from his. "I've come—to stay," she repeated. And then, after a moment, "It's all right. I left a note behind for Bunny. I told him I wasn't going back."

He caught her hand tightly into his. His hold was drawing her, and she yielded herself to it still with that quivering laughter that was somehow more eloquent than words, more piteous than tears.

Saltash spoke, below his breath. "What am I going to do with you?" he said.

Her arms reached up to him suddenly. Perhaps it was that for which she had waited. "You're going—to keep me—this time," she told him tremulously. "Oh, why did you ever send me away—when I belonged to you—and to no one else? You meant to give me my chance? What chance have I of anything but hell and damnation away from you? No, listen! Let me speak! Hear me first!" She uttered the words with passionate insistence. "I'm not asking anything of you—only to be with you. I'll be to you whatever you choose me to be—always—always. I will be your valet, your slave, your—plaything. I will be—the dust under your feet. But I must be with you. You understand me. No one else does. No one else ever can."

"Are you sure you understand yourself?" Saltash said.

His arms had closed about her. He was holding her in a vital clasp. But his restless look did not dwell upon her. It seemed rather to be seeking something beyond.

Toby's hands met and gripped each other behind his neck. She clung to him with an almost frenzied closeness.

"You can't send me away!" she told him brokenly. "If you do, I shall die. And I'm asking such a little—such a very little."

"You don't know what you're asking, child," he said, and though he held her fast pressed to him his voice had the sombre ring of a man who battles with misgiving. "You have never known. That's the hell of it."

"I do know!" she flung back almost fiercely. "I know—all I need to know—of most things. I know—very well—" her breath came quickly, but still her eyes remained upraised—"what would have happened—what was bound to happen—if the yacht had never gone down. I wasn't afraid then. I'm not now. You're the only man on this earth that I'd say it to. I hate men—most men! But to you—to you—" a sudden sob caught her voice, she paused to steady it—"to you I just want to be whatever you're needing most in life. And when I can't be that to you any longer—I'll just drop out—as I promised—and you—you shall never know a thing about it. That I swear."

His look came swiftly to her. The blue eyes were swimming in tears. He made a sudden gesture as of capitulation, and the strain went out of his look. His arms tightened like springs about her. He spoke lightly, jestingly.

"Bien! Shall I tell what you shall be to me, mignonne?" he said, and smiled down at her with his royal air of confidence.

She trembled a little and was silent, realizing that he had suddenly leapt to a decision, fearing desperately what that decision might be. His old baffling mask of banter had wholly replaced the sombreness, but she was aware of a force behind it that gripped her irresistibly. She could not speak in answer.

"I will tell you," he said, and his dark, face laughed into hers with a merriment half-mischievous, half-kindly. "I am treading the path of virtue, mignonne, and uncommon lonely I'm finding it. You shall relieve the monotony. We will be virtuous together—for a while. You shall be—my wife!"

He stooped with the words and ere she knew it his lips were on her own. But his kiss, though tender, was as baffling as his smile. It was not the kiss of a lover.

She gasped and shrank away. "Your—wife! You—you—you're joking! How could I—I—be your wife?"

"You and none other!" he declared gaily. "Egad, it's the very thing for us! Why did I never think of it before? I will order the state-coach at once. We will go to town—elope and be married before the world begins to buzz. What are you frightened at, sweetheart? Why this alarm? Wouldn't you rather be my wife than—the dust beneath my feet?"

"I—I don't know," faltered Toby, and hid her face from the dancing raillery in his eyes.

His hold was close and sheltering, but he laughed at her without mercy. "Does the prospect make you giddy? You will soon get over that. You will take the world by storm, mignonne. You will be the talk of the town."

"Oh, no!" breathed Toby. "No, I couldn't!"

"What?" he jested. "You are going to refuse my suit?"

She turned and clung to him with a passionate, even fierce intensity, but she did not lift her face again to his. Her voice came muffled against his breast. "I could never refuse you—anything."

"Eh, bien! Then all is well!" he declared. "My bride will hold her own wherever she goes, save with her husband. And to him she will yield her wifely submission at all times. Do you know what they will say—all of them—when they hear that Charles Rex is married at last?"

"What?" whispered Toby apprehensively.

He bent his head, still laughing. "Shall I tell you? Can't you guess?"

"No. Tell me!" she said.

He touched the soft ringlets of her hair with his lips. "They will say, 'God help his wife!' mignonne. And I—I shall answer 'Amen'."

She lifted her face suddenly and defiantly, her eyes afire. "Do you know what I shall say if they do?" she said.

"What?" said Saltash, his own eyes gleaming oddly.

"I shall tell them," said Toby tensely, "to—to—to go to blazes!"

He grimaced his appreciation. "Then they will begin to pity the husband, cherie."

She held up her lips to his, childishly, lovingly. "I will be good," she said. "I will be good. I will never say such things again."

He kissed the trembling lips again, lightly, caressingly. "Oh, don't be too good!" he said. "I couldn't live up to it. You shall say what you like—do what you like. And—you shall be my queen!"

She caught back another sob. Her clinging arms tightened. "And you will be—what you have always been," she said—"my king—my king—my king!"

In the silence that followed the passionate words, Charles Rex very gently loosened the clinging arms, and set her free.



PART IV



CHAPTER I

THE WINNING POST

"I never thought it would be like this," said Toby.

She spoke aloud, though she was alone. She stood at an immense window on the first floor of a busy Paris hotel and stared down into the teeming courtyard below. Her fair face wore a whimsical expression that was half of amusement and half of discontent. She looked absurdly young, almost childish; but her blue eyes were unmistakably wistful.

Below her seethed a crowd of vehicles of every description and the babel that came up to her was as the roar of a great torrent. It seemed to sweep away all coherent thought, for she smiled as she gazed downwards and her look held interest in the busy scene even though the hint of melancholy lingered. There was certainly plenty to occupy her, and it was not in her nature to be bored.

But yet at the opening of a door in the room behind her, she turned very swiftly, and in a moment her face was alight with ardent welcome.

"Ah! Here you are!" she said.

He came forward in his quick, springy fashion, his odd eyes laughing their gay, unstable greeting into hers. He took the hands she held out to him, and bending, lightly kissed them.

"Have you been bored? Mais non! I have not been so long gone. Why are you not still resting, cherie, as I told you?"

She looked at him, and still—though her eyes laughed their gladness—the wistfulness remained. "I am—quite rested, monseigneur. And the tiredness—quite gone. And now you are going to take me to see the sights of Paris?"

"Those of them you don't know?" suggested Saltash.

She nodded. "I don't know very many. I never went very far. I was afraid."

He twisted his hand through her arm, and his fingers closed upon her wrist. "You are not afraid—with me?" he questioned.

Her eyes answered him before her voice. "Never, monseigneur."

"Why do you call me that?" said Saltash.

She coloured at the abrupt question. "It suits you."

He made his monkeyish grimace, and suddenly dropped his eyes to the blue-veined wrist in his grasp. "Are you happy, mignonne?" he asked her, still obviously in jesting mood.

Toby's eyes dropped also. She mutely nodded.

"The truth, Nonette?" His look flashed over her; his tone was imperious.

She nodded again. "I always tell you—the truth."

He began to laugh. "Mais vraiment! I had not thought that likely. Then you do not want to leave me—yet?"

"Leave you!" Her eyes came up to his in wide amazement. "I!"

"We have been married three days," he reminded her, with comically working brows. "And I—have I not already begun to leave you—to neglect you?"

"I—I—I never expected—anything else," stammered Toby, suddenly averting her face.

He patted her cheek with careless kindliness. "How wise of you, my dear! How wise! Then you are not yet—sufficiently ennuyee to desire to leave me?"

"Why—why do you ask?" questioned Toby.

There was a species of malicious humour about him that made her uneasy. Saltash in a mischievous mood was not always easy to restrain. He did not immediately reply to her question, and she turned with a hint of panic and tightly clasped his arm.

"It is—you who are—ennuye!" she said, with piteous eyes upraised.

He flicked her cheek with his thumb, his odd eyes gleaming. "Not so, Miladi Saltash! For me—the game is just begun. But—should you desire to leave me—the opportunity is yours. A knight has arrived to the rescue—a very puissant knight!"

"A knight!" gasped Toby, trembling. "Ah! Tell me what you mean!"

His look was openly mocking. "A knight in gaiters!" he told her lightly. "A knight who bears—or should bear—a horsewhip in place of a sword—that is, if I know him aright!"

"Jake!" she gasped incredulously.

He laughed afresh. "Even so! Jake! Most worthy—and most obtrusive! What shall we do with him, lady mine? Slay him—or give him a feed and send him home?"

She stared at him, aghast. "You—you—you are joking!" she stammered.

"I always joke when I am most serious," Saltash assured her.

"Oh, don't!" She clung closer to his arm. "What shall we do? He—he can't do anything, can he? We—we—we really are married, aren't we?"

Saltash's most appalling grimace fled like a hunted goblin across his face. "Married? Heavens, child! What more do you want? Haven't you seen it—actually seen it—in our greatest London daily? And can a London daily lie? You may have dreamed the wedding, but that paragraph—that paragraph—it takes a genius of the first literary degree to dream a paragraph, though it may only need quite an ordinary fool to write it! Why, what is the matter? What is it? Did you see something? Not a mouse? Not a beetle? I prithee, not a beetle!"

For Toby had suddenly hidden her face against his shoulder and there was actual panic in the clinging of her arms. He laid a hand upon her head, and patted it lightly, admonishingly.

She did not speak for a second or two, only gulped with desperate effort at self-restraint. Then, at length, in a muffled voice, "Don't let him take me away!" she besought him shakily. "You—you—you've promised to keep me—now."

"But, of course I'm keeping you," said Saltash. "It's what I did it for. It's the very essence of the game. Cheer up, Nonette! I'm not parting with any of my goods, worldly or otherwise, this journey."

"You are sure?" whispered Toby. "Sure?"

"Sure of what?" He bent swiftly, and for a second, only a second, his lips touched her hair.

"Sure you—don't—want to?" came in a gasp from Toby, as she burrowed a little deeper.

"Oh, that!" Saltash stood up again, and his face was sardonic, for the moment almost grim. "Yes, quite sure of that, my dear. Moreover,—it will amuse me to meet the virtuous Jake on his own ground for once. A new sensation, Nonette! Will you help me to face him? Or do you prefer the more early-Victorian role of the lady who retires till the combat is over and then emerges to reward the winner?"

She lifted her head at that, and uttered a scoffing little laugh, withdrawing herself abruptly from his support. Her pointed chin went up with a hint of defiance. All signs of agitation were gone. "I'll stay and help you," she said.

He made her an elaborate bow. "Then we will ring up the curtain. I congratulate you, madam, upon your spirit. I trust the interview will not try your fortitude too far. Remember, should your feminine ears be shocked by anything that may pass between us, it is up to you to retire at any moment."

Toby's blue eyes caught sudden fire. She broke into an unexpected chuckle. "I do not think I am likely to retire for that reason, monseigneur," she said. "Where is he? How did you know he was coming?"

"Because he is already here," said Saltash. "I passed him at the office, making enquiries. He had his back to me, but there is no mistaking that bull-neck of his. Ah!" He turned his head sharply. "I hear a step outside! Sit down, mignonne! Sit down and be dignified!"

But Toby's idea of dignity was to sit on the corner of the table and swing one leg. If any apprehension lingered in her mind, she concealed it most successfully. She looked like an alert and mischievous boy.

There came a knock at the door, and for a moment her eyes sought Saltash. He grinned back derisively, and pulled out his cigarette-case. "Entrez!" he called.

The door opened with a flourish. A waiter entered with a card.

Saltash barely looked at him. His eyes flashed beyond to the open doorway. "You can come in," he remarked affably. "We've been expecting you for some time."

Jake entered. His square frame seemed to fill the space between the door-posts. He was empty-handed, but there was purpose—grim purpose—in every line of him.

Saltash dismissed the waiter with a jerk of the eyebrows. He was utterly unabashed, amazingly self-assured. He met Jake's stern eyes with cheery effrontery.

"Quite like old times!" he commented. "The only difference being, my good Jake, that on this occasion I have reached the winning-post first."

Jake's look went beyond him to the slight figure by the table. Toby was on her feet. Her face was flushed, but her eyes were wide and defiant. He regarded her steadily for several seconds before, very deliberately, he transferred his attention to Saltash, who nonchalantly awaited his turn, tapping the cigarette on the lid of his case with supreme indifference.

Jake spoke, his voice soft as a woman's, yet strangely dominating. "I should like two minutes alone with you—if you can spare them."

Saltash was smiling. His glance shot towards Toby, and came back to Jake with a certain royal arrogance that held its own without effort. "In other words, you wish—Lady Saltash—to leave us?" he questioned easily.

"I'm not going," said Toby quickly, with nervous decision.

Her hands were tightly clasped in front of her. She stood as one strung to the utmost limit of resistance.

Jake did not again look at her. His eyes were upon Saltash, and they never wavered. "Alone with you," he repeated, with grim insistence.

Saltash regarded him curiously. His mouth twitched mockingly as he put the cigarette between his lips. He held out the case to Jake in mute invitation.

Jake's look remained fixed. He ignored the action, and the case snapped shut in Saltash's hand with a sharp sound that seemed to denote a momentary exasperation. But Saltash's face still retained the monkey-like expression of calculated mischief habitual to it.

"Bunny with you?" he enquired casually, producing a match-box.

"No." Very quietly came Jake's answer. "I have come to see you—alone."

Saltash lighted his cigarette, and blew a careless cloud of smoke. "Are you proposing to shoot me?" he asked, after a pause.

"No," said Jake grimly. "Shooting's too good for you—men like you."

Saltash laughed, and blew another cloud of smoke. "That may be why I have survived so long," he remarked. "I don't see the horsewhip either. Jake, my friend, you are not rising to the occasion with becoming enthusiasm. Any good offering you a drink to stimulate your energies?"

"None whatever," said Jake, still very quietly. "I don't go—till I have what I came for—that's all. Neither do you!"

"I—see!" said Saltash.

An odd little gleam that was almost furtive shone for a second in his eyes and was gone. He turned and crossed the room to Toby.

"My dear," he said, "I think this business will be more quickly settled if you leave us."

She looked at him piteously. He took her lightly by the arm, and led her to a door leading to an adjoining room. "By the time you have smoked one cigarette," he said, "I shall be with you again."

She turned with an impulsive attempt to cling to him. "You'll—keep me?" she said, through trembling lips.

He made a royal gesture that frustrated her with perfect courtesy. "Are you not my wife?" he said.

He opened the door for her, and she had no choice but to go through. She went swiftly, without another glance, and Saltash closed the door behind her.



CHAPTER II

THE VILLAIN SCORES

"Now, sir!" said Saltash, and turned. His tone was brief; the smile had gone from his face. He came to Jake with a certain haughtiness, and stood before him.

Jake squared his shoulders. "So—you've married her!" he said.

"I have." There was a note of challenge in the curt rejoinder. Saltash's brows were drawn.

"I should like to see—proof of that," Jake said, after a moment.

"The devil you would!" Again the hot gleam shone in the odd eyes. Saltash stood for a second in the attitude of a man on the verge of violence. Then, contemptuously, he relaxed.

He lounged back against the mantel-piece and smoked his cigarette. "The devil you would, Jake!" he said again, in a tone so different that the words might have been uttered in another language. "And why—if one be permitted to ask?"

"I think you know why," Jake said.

"Oh, do I? You virtuous people are always the first to suspect evil." Saltash spoke with deliberate cynicism. "And suppose the marriage is not genuine—as you so politely hint—what then, my worthy Jake? What then?"

Jake faced him unwaveringly. "If not," he said, "she goes back with me."

Saltash's eyes suddenly flashed to his, but he did not alter his position. "Sure of that?" he asked casually.

"Sure!" said Jake.

"And if I refuse to part with her? If she refuses to go?"

"Either way," said Jake immovably.

"And why?" Saltash straightened suddenly. "Tell me why! What in hell has it got to do with you?"

"This," said Jake. "Just the fact that she's a girl needing protection and that I—can give it."

"Are you so sure of that?" gibed Saltash. "I think you forget, don't you, that I was her first protector? No one—not even Bunny—could have got near her without my consent."

"She was your find right enough," Jake admitted. "I always knew that—knew from the first you'd faked up a lie about her. But I hoped—I even believed—that you were doing it for her sake—not your own."

"Well?" flung Saltash. "And if I was?"

"And if you were," said Jake, "it was a thing worth doing—worth sticking to. Bunny is a respectable citizen. He'd have married her—made her happy."

Saltash's mouth twisted. "Bunny had his chance—missed it," he said. "He'll know better next time. I'm not troubling about Bunny. He didn't deserve to win."

"And so you decided to play him a damn trick and cut him out?" said Jake.

Saltash snapped his fingers. "I did my best for him, but I couldn't push him through against his will. Why didn't he come after her when he found she had gone? Didn't he know where to look?"

"Just because he knew," said Jake.

Saltash moved abruptly. "Damnation! You shall have what you've come for. If seeing is believing—then you shall believe—that even Charles Burchester can protect a girl at a pinch from the snares of the virtuous!" He pulled an envelope from an inner pocket, and flung it with a passionate gesture upon the table in front of Jake.

Jake's eyes, red-brown and steady, marked the action and contemplated him thereafter for several silent seconds. Then, at length, very slowly. "Maybe—after all—I don't need to see, my lord," he said. "Maybe—I've made a mistake."

He spoke with the utmost quietness, but his manner had undergone a change. It held a hint of deference. He made no move to touch the envelope upon the table.

Saltash's brows went up. "Satisfied?" he questioned curtly.

"On that point, yes." Jake continued to look at him with a close and searching regard.

"Not on all points?" Saltash flicked the ash from his cigarette with a movement of exasperation.

Jake turned and slowly walked to the window. There fell a silence between them. He stood staring down upon the scene that Toby had gazed upon a little earlier, but he saw nothing of it. The hardness had gone out of his face, and a deep compassion had taken its place.

Saltash continued to smoke for several restless seconds. Finally, he dropped the end of his cigarette into a tray and spoke.

"Anything more I can do for you?"

Jake wheeled in his massive way, and came back. "Say!" he said slowly. "I'm kind of sorry for that little girl."

Saltash made an abrupt movement that passed unexplained. "Well?" he said.

Jake faced him squarely. "If I'd been at home," he said, "this would never have happened. Or if it had happened—if it had happened—" He paused.

"You'd have made a point of coming to the wedding?" suggested Saltash.

Jake passed the suggestion by. "I'd have known how to deal with it, anyway. Now, it seems, it's too late."

Saltash took up the envelope from the table, and returned it to his pocket. "I believe you'd have been better pleased if I hadn't married her," he observed.

Jake shook his head. "I'd be better pleased—maybe—if I knew for certain what you did it for."

"My good Jake. I don't go in for aims and motives," protested Saltash. "Call it a marriage of convenience if you feel that way! It's all the same to me."

Jake's brows contracted. "I'd give a good deal not to call it that," he said.

Saltash laughed. "Call it what you like—a whim—a fancy—the craze of the moment! You needn't waste any sentiment over it. I'm sorry about Bunny, but, if he hadn't been an ass, it wouldn't have happened. You can't blame me for that anyhow. You did the same thing yourself."

"I!" The red-brown eyes suddenly shone. "I don't follow you," said Jake deliberately.

"You married your wife to deliver her from—a fate you deemed unsuitable." Saltash's teeth showed for a moment in answer to the gleam in Jake's eyes. "You did it in an almighty hurry too."

"But—damn it—she needed protection!" Jake said. "And—at least—I loved her!"

Saltash bowed. "Hence your motive was an entirely selfish one. My wife—au contraire—is quite unhampered by a husband's devotion. I have never made love to her—yet. I have only—protected her."

He paused, and suddenly the old monkey-like look of mischief flashed back into his face.

"I lay claim to the higher virtue, Jake," he said. "Heaven alone knows how long it will last. I've never scored over you before, but on this occasion—" He stopped with a careless wave of the hand.

"Yes," Jake said. "On this occasion—you've got me beat. But—I didn't fight for my own sake, nor yet for the off chance of downing you, which I own would have given me considerable pleasure once. It was for the child's sake." An unwonted note of entreaty suddenly sounded in his voice. "I don't know what your game is, my lord; but she's yours now—to make—or break. For God's sake—be decent to her—if you can!"

"If I can!" Saltash clapped a sudden hand upon Jake's shoulder, but though the action was obviously a kindly one, it held restraint as well. "Do you think I don't know how to make a woman happy, Jake? Think I haven't studied the subject hard enough? Think I'm a fool at the game?"

Jake looked him straight in the face. "No. I don't think you a fool, my lord," he said. "But I reckon there's one or two things that even you may have to learn. You've never yet made any woman permanently happy. There's only one way of doing that. Bunny would have done it—and won out too. But you—I'm not so sure of you."

"Oh, Bunny would have won out, would he?" Saltash's hand closed like a trap upon Jake's shoulder. There was a challenging quality in his smile.

Jake nodded. "Yes. Bunny's got the real stuff in him. Bunny would have put her happiness before his own always. He would have given her the love that lasts. It's the only thing worth having, after all."

"Well?" The challenge became more marked upon the swarthy face. The smile had vanished. "And you think I am incapable of that?"

"I haven't said so," Jake said sombrely.

"But it's up to me to prove it?" There was a certain insistence in Saltash's tone, albeit a mocking spirit looked out of his eyes.

Jake faced it unwaveringly for several seconds. Then: "Yes. I reckon it is up to you," he said, and turned deliberately away. "I'm going now."

"All right." Saltash's hand fell. "I give you credit for one thing, Jake," he said. "You haven't offered to take her off my hands. For that piece of forbearance I congratulate you. Do you want to see her before you go?"

"Not specially," said Jake.

Saltash's eyes followed him with a look half-malicious, half-curious. "Nor to send her a message?" he questioned.

"No." Jake's tone was brief.

"You're not wanting to offer her a safe harbour when her present anchorage fails her?" jested Saltash.

Jake turned at the door as one goaded. "When that happens," he said very deliberately. "I guess she'll be past any help from me, poor kid!"

Saltash's black brows descended. He scowled hideously for a moment. Then, "I congratulate you again," he said coolly. "You are just beginning to see things—as they are."

Jake made a brief sound that might have indicated contempt and opened the door. He went out with finality, and Saltash listened to the tread of his retreating feet with a grin of sheer cynical triumph.

"So," he said lightly, "the villain scores at last!"

But as he turned towards the other room, the cynicism passed from his face. He stood for a moment or two motionless at the door; then broke into a careless whistle and opened it.



CHAPTER III

A WIFE IS DIFFERENT

"Has he gone?" said Toby eagerly. She came into the room with a swift glance around. "What did he say? What did he do? Was he angry?"

"I really don't know," Saltash said, supremely unconcerned. "He went. That's the main thing."

Toby looked at him critically. "You were so quiet, both of you. Was there a row?"

"Were you listening?" said Saltash.

She coloured, and smiled disarmingly. "Part of the time—no, all the time. But I didn't hear anything—at least not much. Nothing that mattered. Are you angry?"

He frowned upon her, but his eyes reassured. "I told you to smoke a cigarette."

"I'm sorry," said Toby meekly. "Shall I smoke one now?"

He pinched her ear. "No. We'll go out. You've got to shop. First though, I've got something for you. I'm not sure you deserve it, but that's a detail. Few of us ever do get our deserts in this naughty world."

"What is it?" said Toby.

Her bright eyes questioned him. She looked more than ever like an eager boy. He pulled a leather case out of his pocket and held it out to her.

"Oh, what is it?" she said, and coloured more deeply. "You haven't—haven't—been buying me things?"

"Open it!" said Saltash, with regal peremptoriness.

But still she hesitated, till he suddenly laid his hands on hers and compelled her. She saw a single string of pearls on a bed of blue velvet. Her eyes came up to his in quick distress.

"Oh, I ought not to take them!" she said.

"And why not?" said Saltash.

She bit her lip, almost as if she would burst into tears. "Monseigneur—"

"Call me Charles!" he commanded.

His hands still held hers. She dropped her eyes to them, and suddenly, very suddenly, she bent her head and kissed them.

He started slightly, and in a moment he set her free, leaving the case in her hold. "Eh bien!" he said lightly. "That is understood. You like my pearls, cherie?"

"I love—anything—that comes from you," she made low reply. "But these—but these—I ought not to take these."

"But why not?" he questioned. "May I not make you a present? Are you not—my wife?"

"Yes." More faintly came Toby's answer. "But—but—but—a wife is different. A wife—does not need—presents."

"Mais vraiment!" protested Saltash. "So a wife is different! How—different, mignonne?"

He tried to look into the downcast eyes, but she would not raise them. She was trembling a little. "Such things as these," she said, under her breath, "are what a man would give to—to—to the woman he loves."

"And so you think they are unsuitable for—my wife?" questioned Saltash, with a whimsical look on his dark face.

She did not answer him, only mutely held out the case, still without looking at him.

He stood for a second or two, watching her, an odd flame coming and going in his eyes; then abruptly he moved, picked up the pearls from their case, straightened them dexterously, and clasped them about her neck.

She lifted her face then, quivering and irresolute, to his. "And I can give you—nothing," she said.

He took her lightly by the shoulders, as one who caresses a child. "Ma cherie, you have given me already much more than you realize. But we will not go into that now. We will go to the shops. Afterwards, we will go out to Fontainebleau and picnic in the forest. You will like that?"

"Oh, so much!" she said, with enthusiasm.

Yet there was a puzzled look of pain in her eyes as she turned away, and though she wore his pearls, she made no further reference to them.

They went forth into the streets of Paris and Toby shopped. At first she was shy, halting here and hesitating there, till Saltash, looking on, careless and debonair, made it abundantly evident that whatever she desired she was to have, and then like a child on a holiday she flung aside all indecision and became eager and animated. So absorbed was she that she took no note of the passage of time and was horrified when at length he called her attention to the fact that it was close upon the luncheon-hour.

"And you must be so tired of it all!" she said, with compunction.

"Not in the least," he assured her airily between puffs of his cigarette. "It has been—a new experience for me."

Her eyes challenged him for a moment, and he laughed.

"Mais oui, madame! I protest—a new experience. I feel I am doing my duty."

"And it doesn't bore you?" questioned Toby, with a tilt of the chin.

His look kindled a little. "If we were on board the old Night Moth, you'd have had a cuff for that," he remarked.

"I wish we were!" she said daringly.

He flicked his fingers. "You're very young, Nonette."

She shook her head with vehemence. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm only pretending. Can't you see?"

He laughed jestingly. "You have never deceived me yet, ma chere,—not once, from the moment I found you shivering in my cabin up to the present. You couldn't if you tried."

Toby's blue eyes suddenly shone with a hot light. "So sure of that?" she said quickly. "You read me—so easily?"

"Like a book," said Saltash, with an arrogance but half-assumed.

"I cheated you—once," she said, breathing sharply.

"And I caught you," said Saltash.

"Only—only because—I meant you to," said Toby, under her breath.

He raised his brows in momentary surprise, and in a flash she laughed and clapped her hands. "I had you there, King Charles! You see, you are but a man after all."

He gave her a swift and piercing glance. "And what are you?" he said.

Her eyes fell swiftly before his look; she made no reply.

They returned to the hotel and lunched together. The incident of the morning seemed to be forgotten. Jake's name was not once mentioned between them. Toby was full of gaiety. The prospect of the run to Fontainebleau evidently filled her with delight.

She joined Saltash in the vestibule after the meal, clad in a light blue wrap they had purchased that morning.

He went to meet her, a quick gleam in his eyes; and a man to whom he had been talking—a slim, foreign-looking man with black moustache and imperial—turned sharply and gave her a hard stare.

Toby's chin went up. She looked exclusively at Saltash. Her bearing at that moment was that of a princess.

"The car is ready?" she questioned. "Shall we go?"

"By all means," said Saltash.

He nodded a careless farewell to the other man, and followed her, a smile twitching at his lips, the gleam still in his eyes.

"That man is Spentoli the sculptor," he said, as he handed her into the car. "A genius, Nonette! I should have presented him to you if you had not been so haughty."

"I hate geniuses," said Toby briefly.

He laughed at her. "Mais vraiment! How many have you known?"

She considered for a moment, and finally decided that the question did not require an answer.

Saltash took the wheel and spun the little car round with considerable dexterity. "Yes, a genius!" he said. "One of the most wonderful of the age. His work is amazing—scarcely human. He paints too. All Paris raves over his work—with reason. His picture, 'The Victim'—" he looked at her suddenly—"What is the matter, cherie? Is the sun too strong for you?"

Toby's hand was shielding her eyes. Her lips were trembling. "Don't wait!" she murmured. "Don't wait! Let's get away! I am all right—just a little giddy, that's all."

He took her at her word, and sent the car swiftly forward. They passed out into the crowded thoroughfare, and in a moment or two Toby leaned back, gazing before her with a white, set face.

Saltash asked no question. He did not even look at her, concentrating all his attention upon the task of extricating himself as swiftly as possible from the crush of vehicles around them.

It was a day of perfect autumn, and Paris lay basking in sunshine; but Saltash was a rapid traveller at all times, and it was not long before Paris was left behind. But even when free from the traffic, he did not speak or turn towards his companion, merely gave himself to the task of covering the ground as quickly as possible.