Charles Rex

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE TRUTH

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

  His spurs rang upon the white stones, and Sheila Melrose, standing besideher father's car in the shadow of some buildings, turned sharply and sawhim. Her face was pale; it had a strained expression. But it changed atsight of him. She regarded him with that look of frozen scorn which onceshe 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 inthe same moment, and stood up straight to face him. Sheila was pale, buthe was perfectly white, and there were heavy drops of perspiration on hisforehead. He looked full at Saltash with eyes of blazing accusation.

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

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

  Sheila turned without a word and got into the car.

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

  The girl at the wheel did not even thank him. She looked beyond. Only ashe 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 willwrite?" he said.

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

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

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

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

  Bunny controlled himself with a jerk. His face was like death, but hefound 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 aspirited 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 withdrawthe insult--with apologies?"

  "Apologise--to you!" said Bunny.

  "Or fight!" said Saltash. "I think that would do you more good than theother, 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 getthe truth from anyone but me. That girl knows nothing, Bunny!" His voicewas suddenly curt, with that in it which very few ever heard. "Turnaround! 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 himby the arm. His touch was electric. For that moment--only for thatmoment--he was dangerous. There was something of the spring of a tiger inhis action.

  "You damn fool!" he said, and he spoke between his teeth. "Do you supposeeven 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 Saltashlike the glow from cinders blown from a furnace. "Well, listen! I swearto you by all that is sacred that you're making a mistake. Sheila hastold you a certain thing that is true, so far as it goes. But you've letyour imagination run away with you. The rest is false."

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

  Saltash saw his advantage and pressed it. "If Jake were here, he'd tellyou I was speaking the truth, and you'd believe him. You're on a wrongscent. 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 ifI'll let that child be tripped for nothing. Do you hear, Bunny?" He shookthe 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 tohave this thing out. Send a man along with my horse and walk across thepark with me!"

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

  He went with him in silence, hating the magnetism he found it impossibleto 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 hisdefence.

  "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 sawToby working as a page at the Casino Hotel at Valrosa. That right? Ithought so. It's the whole matter in a nutshell. I must have seen hertoo, but never noticed her till my last night in the place. Then I foundAntonio hammering the poor little beggar out in the garden, and I stoppedit. You'd have done the same. Afterwards, late that night, I went onboard the yacht and found her down in the saloon--a stowaway. The yachthad started. I could have put back. I didn't. You wouldn't have doneeither. She took refuge with me. I sheltered her. She came to me as aboy. I treated her as such."

  "You knew?" flung in Bunny.

  Saltash's grin flashed across his dark features like a meteor through acloudy sky and was gone. "I--suspected, _mon ami_. But--I did not eventell myself." That part of him that was French--a species of volatilesentimentality--sounded in the words like the echo of a laugh in a minorkey. "I made a valet of her. I suffered her to clean my boots and brushmy 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 amtelling you the truth. I treated her like a puppy. I was kind to her, butnever extravagantly kind. But I decided--eventually I decided--that itwas time to turn home. No game can last forever. So we returned, and onour last night at sea we were rammed and sunk. Naturally that spoilt--orshall I say somewhat precipitated?--my plans. We were saved, the twoof us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the womanon the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, _monami_, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I hadto invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent'sdaughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done itif you had, I'll wager."

  He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam oftriumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's. Hemoved heavily, staring straight before him, his face drawn in hard linesof 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 knowit and probably would not comprehend it if she did."

  "Leave her out of it!" said Bunny, in a strangled voice. "It was--theobvious conclusion."

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

  Bunny made a sharp movement of protest. Saltash was looking at him withhalf-humorous compassion as one looks at a child with a damaged toy, andhe 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 ameasure 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 tomeet his look as he made reply. "You are quite welcome to know it, _monami_. I chance to take a fatherly interest in you both."

  Bunny flinched a little. Something in the light reply had pierced himthough 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 thepractised swordsman behind the blade.

  Bunny stood for some moments regarding him, his boyish face stern andtroubled. Up to that point, against his will, he had believed him; fromit, he believed him no longer. But--he faced the truth however it mightgall 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?" heblurted forth abruptly, and there was something akin to agony in hisutterance of the words. He knew that he was baring his breast for thestroke 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 smileof comradeship.

  "Quite honestly, Bunny," he said, "if I had realized it, it wouldn't havemade 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 thatis 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 anexception anyway. She knows play from earnest."

  "Does she?" said Bunny. He paused a moment, as if trying to concentratehis forces; then he turned to Saltash again. "I'm going back now. I can'tdine with you--though I've no desire to quarrel. But you see--you mustunderstand--that I can never--accept anything from you again. I'msorry--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, almostcaressingly, 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. "Itisn't--somehow it isn't--worth it."

  "Thanks!" said Saltash, and briefly laughed. "You place my friendship ata 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 inBunny's eyes, dispelling the look of stricken misery. "I'm not asking youto help me."

  "I've grasped that," said Saltash. "But even so, I may be able to lend ahand. As you say, there is not much point in our quarrelling. There'snothing to quarrel about that I can see--except that you've called me aliar for no particular good reason!"

  "Do you object to that?" said Bunny.

  Saltash made a careless gesture. "Perhaps---as you say--it isn't worthit. 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. "Youmay forget--or possibly you may remember--that I gave my protection toNonette on the day she came to me for it, and I have never withdrawnit 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 downagain. 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 evaderesistance and yet to gain his point.

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

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

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

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

  "And will that help?" The note of mockery that was never long absent fromhis voice sounded again. "Isn't it possible--sometime--to try to know toomuch? There is such a thing as looking too closely, _mon ami_. And thenwe 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 goingthe wrong way to satisfy yourself. But that is your affair, not mine. Thegods have sent you a gift, and because you don't know what it is madeof, you are going to pull it to pieces to find out. And presently youwill fling it away because you cannot fit it together again. You don'trealize--you never will realize--that the best things in life are thethings we never see and only dimly understand."

  A vein of sincerity mingled with the banter in his voice, and Bunny wasaware of a curious quality of reverence, of something sacred in a wasteplace.

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

  "Do you mean to tell me," he said, speaking slowly, his eyes upon theswarthy, baffling countenance, "that you have never even tried to knowwhere she came from--what she is?"

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

  "Then," Bunny spoke with difficulty, but his look never wavered, "tellme--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 challengeinto his own. "I mean," he said, "that the flame has scorched her, but ithas 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 nothelp 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? Whatproof do you need? Just--look into her eyes!"

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

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

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

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

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