Charles Rex Part 68

"Oh yes, you had." Again the faint smile showed for an instant in the elder man's eyes. "Not much of one, perhaps, but you had a chance. If she'd been quite sure of you, she wouldn't have run away."

"Wouldn't she? Then she can't be very sure of Saltash either." Bunny spoke with a certain gloomy triumph.

Jake blew forth a cloud of smoke and watched it rise thoughtfully. "I'm waiting for Saltash," he said. "I've got him on test."

"You believe in him?" questioned Bunny contemptuously.

Jake's eyes remained fixed. "I believe," he said slowly, "that there comes a turning-point in every man's life--whatever he's been--when he either makes good or throws in his hand altogether. I've been through it myself, and I know what it means. It's Saltash's turn now."

"Oh, rot, Jake!" Bunny turned on him with the old boyish admiration s.h.i.+ning in his eyes. "You--why, you've made good every time--just about as often as Charlie has done the other thing."

"No." Jake spoke without elation. "I did make good, but I went through h.e.l.l first, and I very nearly failed. It may be the same with him. If so--well, poor devil, he has my sympathy."

"You can't be sorry for a hound like Saltas.h.!.+" remonstrated Bunny.

Jake turned squarely and faced him. "Well, there you're wrong, Bunny," he said. "I reckon I'm sorrier for him than I am for you. You've got a clean record, and you'll win out and marry Sheila Melrose. But Saltash--well, he's got a d.a.m.n heavy handicap, and if he pulls off this, it'll be one of the biggest events I've ever seen. Say, what's the matter?"

Bunny had sprung to his feet. He stood looking at Jake with an expression half-startled and half-indignant. "Jake--you beast! What made you say that?" he demanded.

"What?" said Jake, and began to smile openly. "Well, guess it's pretty near the mark, isn't it? I saw which way the wind was trying to blow some time ago. Mean to say you didn't?"

Bunny swung upon his heel. "Confound you!" he said, and was silent for several seconds.

Jake smoked imperturbably on. He knew all the workings of Bunny's mind with the sure intuition of long intimacy. When finally the boy spoke again without turning he almost knew what he would say.

"Think I'm--very despicable, Jake?"

The question had a shamed and sullen ring. Bunny's head was bent. He was examining a little china figure on the mantelpiece with nervous concentration.

Jake arose without fuss or preliminary, and pushed a brotherly arm round the bent shoulders. "Guess you've never been that, sonny," he said very kindly. "But--you take an old man's advice and go a bit slow! She'll think all the better of you for it."

"She'll never look at me," muttered Bunny, gripping the hand that pressed his shoulder without raising his eyes.

"Ho, won't she?" said Jake. "I've seen her look at you more than once--and the old General too. Reckon they both thought you were throwing yourself away on Toby, and maybe they had some reason to think so.

Anyway, she never was your sort. I seem to remember telling you so once."

"I was a fool," said Bunny, and then in a moment straightened himself and looked Jake in the eyes. "It wasn't Toby's fault," he said with abrupt generosity. "She didn't want to get engaged to me. I made her.

I knew--all along--she wasn't very keen. But I thought I loved her enough to make it all right. I was wrong. I didn't."

"Beginning to know better?" suggested Jake, with a smile.

"Beginning to realize what a fool I've been," said Bunny ruefully. "You don't think I've done for myself then? Think I've still got a chance?"

"Sure thing!" said Jake. "But go carefully. You've got a fence or two to clear before you get home." He paused a moment, then gave him a kindly hand-grip. "Say, Bunny," he said, "there's nothing despicable about making a mistake. It's only when things go wrong and we don't play the game that there's anything to be ashamed of. I've always been ready to stake my last dollar that you'd never do that."

"Oh, man," Bunny said, in swift embarra.s.sment, "that shows how much you know about me!"

Jake stooped to knock out the ashes of his pipe in the fender. "What I don't know about you, my son," he said, "ain't worth a donkey's bray, I reckon, so you can shut your mouth on that! I'm going back to Maud now.

Any messages?"

"Yes." Bunny was standing up very straight; his eyes were s.h.i.+ning. "Love to Maud of course. I shan't come round at present. But tell Toby that when I do, she needn't be worried over anything. We're all square. Tell her that!"

"I will," said Jake. He turned to the door, then paused, looking back.

"And say!" he said. "Don't you b.u.t.t in with Saltas.h.!.+ Just leave him to manage his own fate! He's riding a bucking horse, but I've a notion he'll yet make good--if he can."

"He's a rum devil," said Bunny. "All right. I shan't interfere."

After Jake had gone, he sat down and pulled a letter from his pocket. All the lines of perplexity smoothed out of his boyish face as he read it. It was the letter of a woman who had written because she wanted to write, not because she had anything to say, and Bunny's eyes were very tender as he came to the end. He sat for a s.p.a.ce gazing down at the signature, and at length with a gesture half-shamefaced he put it to his lips.

"Yes, I've been a fool, Sheila," he said softly. "But, thank heaven, I was pulled up in time. And I shan't--ever--make that mistake again."

Which was perhaps exactly what the writer had meant him to say.

CHAPTER IX

LARPENT

"Shall we dig a deep, deep hole for you to lie in?" asked Eileen with serious violet eyes upraised.

"And then cover you right up to your head so as you won't catch cold?"

chimed in Molly.

"Betty dig too! Betty dig too!" cried the youngest of the party with zest. "Zite up over Auntie Toy's head!"

"What an excellent idea!" said Toby with resignation.

She sat down in the golden afternoon suns.h.i.+ne that flooded the beach, the three children buzzing happily about her, and rested her chin on her hands. The blue eyes that dwelt upon the misty horizon were very tired.

They had the heavy look of unshed tears, and all the delicate colour was gone from her face. Her slight figure drooped pathetically. She sat very still. All the elasticity of youth seemed to have gone out of her.

Once or twice a sharp sigh caught her that was almost like a sob.

Betty's shrill voice at her side recalled her from her dreams. "Betty tired now, Auntie Toy. Betty tummin' to sit down."

She turned and took the child upon her lap with a fondling touch and tender words. Betty pillowed a downy head against her neck and almost immediately fell asleep. Eileen and Molly laboured on at their self-imposed task in the autumn suns.h.i.+ne, and Toby returned to her dreams.

Perhaps she also had begun to doze, for the day was warm and sound sleep had forsaken her of late; when the falling of a shadow aroused her very swiftly to the consciousness of someone near at hand whose approach she had not heard. She controlled her quick start before it could awaken the sleeping child, but her eyes as they flashed upwards had the strained, panic-stricken look of a hunted animal. She made an almost involuntary movement of shrinking and the blood went out of her lips, but she spoke no word.

A man in a navy-blue yachting-suit stood looking down at her with blue-grey eyes that tried to be impersonal but failed at that slight gesture of hers.

"You needn't be afraid of me, heaven knows," he said.

"I'm not," said Toby promptly, and flung him her old boyish smile. "I wasn't expecting just you at that moment, that's all. Sit down and talk, Captain--if that's what you've come for!"

Apparently it was. He lowered himself to the sand beside her. But at once--as by irresistible habit--his eyes sought the horizon, and he sat and contemplated it in utter silence.

Toby endured the situation for a few difficult seconds, then took brisk command. "Why don't you have a smoke?" she said. "You'd find it a help."