Charles Rex Part 24

"I've been a good many things," said Jake.

She nodded again. "And always the right sort. I wish--" She broke off abruptly.

"What?" said Jake.

"Oh, nothing," said Toby, with a rather wistful little laugh.

"Let's have it!" said Jake.

Her hand lay in his, and this time she left it there. Her blue eyes met his courageously. "Only that I'd met you before," she said.

"Before when?" said Jake. "Before you met Saltash?"

"Oh no!" Very swiftly, she answered him. "Oh no! Lord Saltash is among the kings. I'd have been dead by now but for him!" Her eyes kindled as with a sudden glowing memory, she flushed like an eager child. "You know him?" she said. "Isn't he--isn't he--fine?"

She spoke with reverence, even with a certain awe. The man's face changed a little, hardening almost imperceptibly.

"Guess he's no great hero of mine," he said. "But maybe he has his points."

"He has!" Toby a.s.sured him with fervor. "You don't know him like I do.

He's a--he's a masterpiece."

"That so?" said Jake.

Perhaps Toby felt a lack of sympathy in his tone; she quitted the subject abruptly. "No, that wasn't what I meant. I only wish I'd met you long ago--years and years ago--when you were a cow-boy."

"You were a babe in arms then," said Jake.

She shook her head, quaintly smiling. "I wasn't ever that. I think I must have been born old--began at the wrong end somehow. Some people do, you know."

"I know," said Jake. "When that happens, there's only one thing to be done."

"What?" queried Toby.

His eyes were watching her intently, but there was nothing alarming in their scrutiny. He made reply with absolute gentleness. "Begin again."

"Ah!" A little sound that was more than a sigh escaped her, and then quite suddenly her other hand came out to him; she lifted a quivering face. "You going to help me?" she said.

The action touched him. He took her by the shoulders as he might have taken a boy. "I'll help you," he said.

"You'll be good to me?" Her voice was quivering also, it had a sound of tears.

"Sure!" said Jake, laconic and forceful.

"Keep me straight and pull me up when I go wrong?" pursued Toby tremulously.

"Yes, I'll do that," he said.

"And you won't--you won't--you won't--talk to anybody about me?" she pleaded.

"No," said Jake briefly.

"Not to Lord Saltash? Not to anyone?"

"No," he said again, a hint of sternness in the curt word.

Toby gulped down her distress, was silent for a moment or two, then suddenly smiled upon him--a sunny inconsequent smile. "Guess I've got you on my side now," she said with satisfaction. "You're nice and solid, Mr.

Jake Bolton. When you've been picked up from the very bottom of the sea, it's good to have someone big and safe to hold on to."

"That so?" said Jake.

"Yes, I know now why Lord Saltash sent me here--just because you're big--and safe."

"Oh, quite safe," said Jake with his sudden smile.

It came to him--as it had come to Saltash--that there was something piteously like a small animal, storm-driven and seeking refuge, about her. Even in her merriest moments she seemed to plead for kindness.

He patted her shoulder rea.s.suringly as he let her go. "I'll look after you," he said, "if you play the game."

"What game?" said Toby unexpectedly.

He looked her squarely in the eyes. "The only game worth playing," he said. "The straight game."

"Oh, I see," said Toby with much meekness. "Not cheat, you mean? Lord Saltash doesn't allow cheating either."

"Good land!" said Jake in open astonishment.

"You don't know him," said Toby again with conviction.

And Jake laughed, good-humoured but sceptical. "Maybe I've something to learn yet," he said tolerantly. "But it's my impression that for sheer mischief and double-dealing he could knock spots off any other human being on this earth."

"Oh, if that's all you know about him," said Toby, "you've never even met him--never once."

"Have you?" questioned Jake abruptly.

She coloured up to the soft fair hair that cl.u.s.tered about her blue-veined temples, and turned from him with an odd little indrawn breath. "Yes!" she said. "Yes!"--paused an instant as if about to say more; then again in a whisper, "Yes!" she said, and went lightly away as if the subject were too sacred for further discussion.

"Good land!" said Jake again, and departed to his own room in grim amazement.

Saltash the sinner was well known to him and by no means uncongenial; but Saltash the saint, not only beloved, but reverenced and enshrined as such, as something beyond his comprehension! How on earth had he managed to achieve his sainthood?

CHAPTER IX

THE IDOL