Charles Rex - Ethel May Dell (i love reading .TXT) 📗

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