The Obstacle Race Part 39

She uttered her soft, low laugh. "No; you have quite enough accomplishments, _mon ami_. Now, if you don't mind, I think we had better walk back and find Mr. and Mrs. Fielding. Perhaps you know--or again perhaps you don't--they live at Shale Court. And I am with them--as Mrs. Fielding's companion. I--" she hesitated momentarily--"have left Lady Jo."

"Oh, I know that," said Saltash. "I've missed you badly. We all have.

When are you coming back to us?"

"I don't know," said Juliet.

He gave her one of his humorous looks. "Next week--some time--never?"

She opened her sun-shade absently. "Probably," she said.

"Rather hard on Lady Jo, what?" he suggested. "Don't you miss her at all?"

"No," said Juliet. "I can't--honestly--say I do."

"Oh, let us be honest at all costs!" he said. "Do you know what Lady Jo is doing now?"

Juliet hesitated an instant, as if the subject were distasteful to her.

"I can guess," she said somewhat distantly.

"I'll bet you can't," said Saltash, with a twist of the eyebrows that was oddly characteristic of him. "So I'll tell you. She's running in an obstacle race, and--to be quite, quite honest--I don't think she's going to win."

There was a moment's pause. Then the man on Juliet's other side spoke, briefly and with decision. "Miss Moore is no longer interested in Lady Joanna Farringmore's doings. Their friends.h.i.+p is at an end."

Juliet made a slight gesture of remonstrance, but she spoke no word in contradiction.

A gleam of malice danced in Saltash's eyes; it was like the turn of a rapier in a practised hand. "Most wise and proper!" he said. "_Juliette_, I always admired your discretion."

"You were always very kind, Charles Rex," she made grave reply.

CHAPTER III

THE PRICE

They went back up the winding glen, and as they went Lord Saltash talked, superbly at his ease, of the doings of the past few weeks, "since you and that naughty Lady Jo dropped out," as he expressed it to Juliet. He had just recently been to Paris, had motored across France, had just returned by sea from Bordeaux in his yacht, the _Night Moth_.

"Landed to-day--forgot this unspeakable flower-show--had to put in to get her cleaned up for Cowes--though it's quite possible I shan't go near Cowes when all's said and done. She's quite seaworthy, warranted not to kick in a gale. If anyone wanted her for a cruise--she's about the best thing going."

They reached the shrubbery to be nearly deafened by the band.

"Come through the gardens!" said Saltash, with a shudder. "We must get out of this somehow."

"But my people!" objected Juliet.

"Oh, Mr. Green will go and find them, won't you, Mr. Green?" Saltash turned a disarming smile upon him.

But Green looked straight back without a smile. "Miss Moore is under my escort," he observed. "If she agrees, I think we had better go together."

"And do you agree, _Juliette_?" enquired Saltash with interest.

Juliet met the mocking eyes with a smile that was certainly unintentional. "They may be in the Castle," she said. "I know they meant to go."

"Good!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Then come to the Castle! I will get you tea in my own secret den if such a thing is to be had--tea or a c.o.c.ktail, _ma Juliette_!"

"Will you lead the way?" said Juliet, and for a second--only a second--her hand pressed d.i.c.k's arm with a quick, confidential pressure that was not without its appeal. "We always follow Charles Rex!" she said.

Saltash chuckled. Plainly the adventure amused him.

They entered the trim gardens, escaping thankfully from the wandering crowd of sight-seers. Saltash led the way with a certain unconscious arrogance of bearing. Somehow, his ugliness notwithstanding, he fitted his surroundings perfectly, save that the white yachting-suit ought to have been fas.h.i.+oned of satin, and a sword should have dangled at his side. The old stone turrets that towered above the blazing parterres gleamed in the hot sunlight--a mediaeval castle of romance.

"What a glorious old place!" said Juliet.

He turned to her. "You have never seen it before?"

"Never," she answered.

He made her a bow that was slightly foreign. There was French blood in his veins. "I give you welcome, _maladi_," he said, "I and my poor castle are all yours to command."

He made a gallant figure there on his stone terrace. The girl's eyes shone a little, but they turned almost immediately to the other man at her side.

"Beautiful, isn't it, d.i.c.k?" she said.

He met her look, and she was conscious of a chill. She had never seen him look so aloof, so cynical. "A temple of delight!" he said.

His manner offended her. She turned deliberately away from him. And again Lord Saltash chuckled, as though at some secret joke.

They entered by a narrow door at the head of a flight of steps. "This at least is private," declared Saltash, as he took a key from an inner pocket.

"Does no one ever come in here when you are away?" Juliet asked.

"Not by this entrance," he said. "There is another into the Castle itself which is known to a few. It leads into the music room whence Mr. Green will be able to start upon his search."

He threw a mischievous glance at Green who met it with a look so direct, and so unswerving that the odd eyes blinked and turned away.

But curiously a spirit of perversity seemed to have entered into Juliet.

She also looked at d.i.c.k. "I wish you would go and find them," she said.

"I know they will be wondering where we are."

His brows went up. She thought he was going to refuse. And then quite suddenly he yielded. "Certainly if you wish it!" he said. "And when they are found?"

"Oh, dump them in the great hall!" said Saltash. "To be left till called for!"

"Charles!" protested Juliet.

He grinned at her--a wicked, monkeyish grin, and threw open the door, disclosing a steep and winding stone stair.