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

/> Toby flinched a little. "My home isn't anywhere then," she said. "When I left him, it was--for good."
"Why did you leave him?" said Larpent.
Toby's lips set in a firm line, and she made no answer.
Larpent waited a few moments; then: "It's no matter for my interference," he said. "But it seems to me you've made a mistake in one particular. You don't realize why he married you."
Toby made a small passionate movement of protest. "He ought not to have done it," she said, in a low voice. "I ought not to have let him. I thought I could play the part. I know now I can't. And--he knows it too."
"I think you'll have to play the part," Larpent said.
"No!" She spoke with vehemence. "It's quite impossible. He has been far too good--far too generous. But it shan't go on. He's got to set me free. If he doesn't--" she stopped abruptly.
"Well? If he doesn't?" Larpent's voice was unwontedly gentle, and there was compassion in his look.
Toby's eyes avoided his. "I'll find--a way for myself," she said almost inarticulately.
Larpent's fingers tightened again upon the thin young arm. "It's no good fighting Fate," he said. "Why has it become impossible? Just because he knows all about you? Do you suppose that--or anything else--is going to make any difference at this stage? Do you imagine he would let you go--for that?"
Toby's arm strained against him. "He'll have to," she declared stubbornly. "He doesn't know all about me either---any more than you do. And--and--and--he's never going to know."
Her voice shook stormily. She glanced about her desperately as if in search of refuge. The child in her arms stirred and woke.
Larpent got up as if the conversation were ended. He stood for a moment irresolute, then walked across to the two little girls digging busily a few yards away.
Eileen greeted him with her usual shy courtesy. "Won't you wait a little longer?" she said. "We've very nearly finished."
"Nearly finished," echoed Molly. "Isn't it a booful big hole?"
"What's it for?" asked Larpent.
Toby's voice answered him. She had risen and followed him. It had an odd break in it--the sound of laughter that is mingled with tears. "They're digging a hole to bury me in. Isn't it a great idea?"
He wheeled and looked at her. There was no sign of tears in the wide blue eyes that met his own. Yet he put his hand on her shoulder with the gesture of one who comforts a child.
"Before I go," he said, "I want to tell you something--something no one has told me, but that I've found out for myself. There is only one thing on this earth worth having--only one thing that counts. It isn't rank or wealth or even happiness. It swamps the lot, just because it's the only thing in God's creation that lasts. And you've got it. In heaven's name, don't throw it away!"
He spoke with the simplicity and strength of a man who never wastes his words, and having spoken, he released her without farewell and turned away.
Toby stood quite motionless for several seconds, watching him; then, as he did not look round, hurriedly she addressed the eldest child.
"Take care of Betty a moment, Eileen darling! I shall be back directly." And with the words she was gone, like an arrow, in pursuit.
He must have heard her feet upon the sand, but he did not turn. Perhaps his thoughts were elsewhere, for when at the quick pressure of her hand on his arm he paused to look at her, she saw that his eyes were very sad.
"Well?" he said, with the glimmer of a smile. "Well,--Toinette?"
She clasped her two hands upon his arm, holding it very tightly, her face uplifted. "Please--I want to thank you," she said breathlessly. "You have been--so very good."
He shook his head. "I have done--nothing," he said. "Don't thank me!"
She went on with nervous haste. "And it does make a difference to me. I--I--I'm glad I know, though it must have been--a great shock to you."
"It would have been a much worse shock if it had been anyone else," he said.
"Would it? How nice of you!" Her lip trembled. "Well then, I'm glad it wasn't." She began to walk on with him. "Do you mind telling me--did you--did you--forgive her?"
"Yes," he said very quietly.
A quick shiver went through her. "Then I must too," she said. "At least--I must try. She--she--I loved her once, you know, before I began to understand."
"Everyone loved her," he said.
"But life is very difficult, isn't it?" she urged rather tremulously.
"Your life has been," he said.
She nodded. "One can't help--can't help--making mistakes--even bad ones--sometimes."
"You've just made one," he said.
She faced him valiantly. "Ah, but you don't understand. You--you can't throw away--what you've never had, can you--can you?"
"What you've got," he corrected gravely. "Yes, you can."
She flung out her hands with a wide gesture. "But I haven't got it! I never had it! He took me out of pity. He never--pretended to love me."
"No," said Larpent, with grim certitude. "He isn't pretending this time."
She stared at him, wide-eyed, motionless. "Not pretending? What do you mean? Please--what do you mean?"
He held out his hand. "Good-bye!" he said abruptly. "I mean--just that."
Her lips were parted to say more, but something in his face or action checked her. She put her hand into his. "Good-bye!" she said.
He held her hand for a moment, then, moved by some hint of forlornness in the clear eyes, he bent, as he had bent at the Castle on that summer evening weeks before, and lightly touched her forehead with his lips.
"Oh, that's nice of you," said Toby quickly. "Thank you for that."
"Don't thank me for anything!" said Larpent. "Play a straight game, that's all!"
And with the words he left her finally, striding away over the sand with that careless sailor's gait of his, gazing always far ahead of him out to the dim horizon. Perhaps as long as he lived his look would never again dwell upon anything nearer.


CHAPTER X
IN THE NAME OF LOVE

"It's been--a funny game," said Saltash, with a wry grimace. "We've both of us been so damned subtle that it seems to me we've ended up in much the same sort of hole that we started in."
"But you're not going to stay in it," said Maud.
He turned and looked down at her, one eyebrow cocked at a comic angle. "_Ma belle reine_, if you can help us to climb out, you will earn my undying gratitude."
She met his look with her steadfast eyes. "Charlie, do you know that night after night she cries as if her poor little heart were broken?"
Saltash's eyebrow descended again. He scowled hideously. "_Mais pourquoi?_ I have not broken it. I have never even made love to her."
Maud's face was very compassionate. "Perhaps that is why. She is so young--so forlorn--and so miserable. Is it quite impossible for you to forgive her?"
"Forgive her!" said Saltash. "Does she want to be forgiven?"
"She is fretting herself ill over it," Maud said. "I can't bear to see her. No, she has told me nothing--except that she is waiting for you to throw her off--to divorce her. Charlie, you wouldn't do that even if you could!"
Saltash was silent; the scowl still upon his face.
"Tell me you wouldn't!" she urged.
His odd eyes met hers with a shifting gleam of malice. "There is only one reason for which I would do that, _ma chere_," he said. "So she has not told you why she ran away with my friend Spentoli?"
Maud shook her head. "She does not speak of it at all. I only know that she was unspeakably thankful to Jake for protecting her from him."
"Ah!" Saltash's teeth showed for an instant. "I also am grateful to Jake for that. He seems to have taken a masterly grip of the situation. Is he aware that he broke Spentoli's arm, I wonder? It was in the papers, alongside the tragic death of Rozelle. 'Fall of a Famous Sculptor from a Train.' It will keep him quiet for some time, I hear, and has saved me the trouble of calling him out. I went to see him in hospital."
"You went to see him!" Maud exclaimed.
Saltash nodded, the derisive light still in his eyes. "And conveyed my own condolences. You may tell _la petite_ from me that I do not propose to set her free on his account. He is not what I should describe as a good and sufficient cause."
"Thank heaven for that!" Maud ejaculated with relief.
"Amen!" said Saltash piously, and took out his cigarette-case.
She watched him with puzzled eyes till the cigarette was alight and he smiled at her through the smoke, his swarthy face full of mocking humour.
"Now tell me!" she said then, "how can I help you?"
He made a wide gesture. "I leave that entirely to your discretion, madam. As you may perceive, I have wholly ceased to attempt to help myself."
"You are not angry with her?" she hazarded.
"I am furious," said Charles Rex royally.
She shook her head at him. "You're not in earnest--and it wouldn't help you if you were. Besides, you couldn't be angry with the poor little thing. Charlie, you love her, don't you? You--you want her back?"
He shifted his position slightly so that the smoke of his cigarette did not float in her direction. His smile had a whimsical twist. "Do I want her back?" he said. "On my oath, it's hard to tell."
"Oh, surely!" Maud said. She rose impulsively and stood beside him. "Charlie," she said, "why do you wear a mask with me? Do you think I don't know that she is all the world to you?"
He looked at her, and the twisted smile went from his face. "There is no woman on this earth that I can't do without," he said. "I learnt that--when I lost you."
"Ah!" Maud's voice was very pitiful. Her hand came to his. "But this--this is different. Why should you do without her? You know she loves you?"
His fingers closed spring-like about her own. A certain hardness was in his look. "If she loves me," he said, "she can come back to me of her own accord."
"But if she is afraid?" Maud pleaded.
"She has no reason to be," he said. "I have claimed nothing from her. I have never spoken a harsh word to her. Why is she afraid?"
"Have you understood her?" Maud asked very gently.
He made an abrupt movement as though the question, notwithstanding the absolute kindness of its utterance, had somehow an edge for him. The next moment he began to laugh.
"Why ask these impossible riddles? Has any man ever understood a woman? Let us dismiss the subject! And since you are here, _ma belle reine_,--you of all people--let us celebrate the occasion with a drink!--even if it be only tea!"
His eyes laughed into hers. The western light was streaming in across the music-room. They stood together in the turret beyond Saltash's piano, where she had found him pouring out wild music that made her warm heart ache for him.
She had come to him with the earnest desire to help, but he baffled her at every turn, this man to whom once in the days of her youth she had been so near. She could not follow the complex workings of his mind. He was too quick to cover his feelings. His inner soul had long been hidden from her.
Yet the conviction persisted that if any could pass that closed door that he kept so persistently against all comers, it would be