Charles Rex Part 56

"What?" said Saltash. He bent towards her, looking closely into her face.

"Got to keep you, have I? What's that mean? Has Bunny been a brute to you? I could have sworn I'd made him understand."

She laughed in answer. "Bunny! I didn't wait to see him!"

"What?" Saltash said again.

She reached up a quick, nervous hand and laid it against his breast. Her eyes, wide and steadfast, never flinched from his. "I've come--to stay,"

she repeated. And then, after a moment, "It's all right. I left a note behind for Bunny. I told him I wasn't going back."

He caught her hand tightly into his. His hold was drawing her, and she yielded herself to it still with that quivering laughter that was somehow more eloquent than words, more piteous than tears.

Saltash spoke, below his breath. "What am I going to do with you?" he said.

Her arms reached up to him suddenly. Perhaps it was that for which she had waited. "You're going--to keep me--this time," she told him tremulously. "Oh, why did you ever send me away--when I belonged to you--and to no one else? You meant to give me my chance? What chance have I of anything but h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation away from you? No, listen! Let me speak! Hear me first!" She uttered the words with pa.s.sionate insistence.

"I'm not asking anything of you--only to be with you. I'll be to you whatever you choose me to be--always--always. I will be your valet, your slave, your--plaything. I will be--the dust under your feet. But I must be with you. You understand me. No one else does. No one else ever can."

"Are you sure you understand yourself?" Saltash said.

His arms had closed about her. He was holding her in a vital clasp. But his restless look did not dwell upon her. It seemed rather to be seeking something beyond.

Toby's hands met and gripped each other behind his neck. She clung to him with an almost frenzied closeness.

"You can't send me away!" she told him brokenly. "If you do, I shall die.

And I'm asking such a little--such a very little."

"You don't know what you're asking, child," he said, and though he held her fast pressed to him his voice had the sombre ring of a man who battles with misgiving. "You have never known. That's the h.e.l.l of it."

"I do know!" she flung back almost fiercely. "I know--all I need to know--of most things. I know--very well--" her breath came quickly, but still her eyes remained upraised--"what would have happened--what was bound to happen--if the yacht had never gone down. I wasn't afraid then.

I'm not now. You're the only man on this earth that I'd say it to. I hate men--most men! But to you--to you--" a sudden sob caught her voice, she paused to steady it--"to you I just want to be whatever you're needing most in life. And when I can't be that to you any longer--I'll just drop out--as I promised--and you--you shall never know a thing about it.

That I swear."

His look came swiftly to her. The blue eyes were swimming in tears. He made a sudden gesture as of capitulation, and the strain went out of his look. His arms tightened like springs about her. He spoke lightly, jestingly.

"_Bien!_ Shall I tell what you shall be to me, _mignonne_?" he said, and smiled down at her with his royal air of confidence.

She trembled a little and was silent, realizing that he had suddenly leapt to a decision, fearing desperately what that decision might be. His old baffling mask of banter had wholly replaced the sombreness, but she was aware of a force behind it that gripped her irresistibly. She could not speak in answer.

"I will tell you," he said, and his dark, face laughed into hers with a merriment half-mischievous, half-kindly. "I am treading the path of virtue, _mignonne_, and uncommon lonely I'm finding it. You shall relieve the monotony. We will be virtuous together--for a while. You shall be--my wife!"

He stooped with the words and ere she knew it his lips were on her own.

But his kiss, though tender, was as baffling as his smile. It was not the kiss of a lover.

She gasped and shrank away. "Your--wife! You--you--you're joking! How could I--I--be your wife?"

"You and none other!" he declared gaily. "Egad, it's the very thing for us! Why did I never think of it before? I will order the state-coach at once. We will go to town--elope and be married before the world begins to buzz. What are you frightened at, sweetheart? Why this alarm? Wouldn't you rather be my wife than--the dust beneath my feet?"

"I--I don't know," faltered Toby, and hid her face from the dancing raillery in his eyes.

His hold was close and sheltering, but he laughed at her without mercy.

"Does the prospect make you giddy? You will soon get over that. You will take the world by storm, _mignonne_. You will be the talk of the town."

"Oh, no!" breathed Toby. "No, I couldn't!"

"What?" he jested. "You are going to refuse my suit?"

She turned and clung to him with a pa.s.sionate, even fierce intensity, but she did not lift her face again to his. Her voice came m.u.f.fled against his breast. "I could never refuse you--anything."

"_Eh, bien!_ Then all is well!" he declared. "My bride will hold her own wherever she goes, save with her husband. And to him she will yield her wifely submission at all times. Do you know what they will say--all of them--when they hear that Charles Rex is married at last?"

"What?" whispered Toby apprehensively.

He bent his head, still laughing. "Shall I tell you? Can't you guess?"

"No. Tell me!" she said.

He touched the soft ringlets of her hair with his lips. "They will say, 'G.o.d help his wife!' _mignonne_. And I--I shall answer 'Amen'."

She lifted her face suddenly and defiantly, her eyes afire. "Do you know what I shall say if they do?" she said.

"What?" said Saltash, his own eyes gleaming oddly.

"I shall tell them," said Toby tensely, "to--to--to go to blazes!"

He grimaced his appreciation. "Then they will begin to pity the husband, _cherie_."

She held up her lips to his, childishly, lovingly. "I will be good," she said. "I will be good. I will never say such things again."

He kissed the trembling lips again, lightly, caressingly. "Oh, don't be too good!" he said. "I couldn't live up to it. You shall say what you like--do what you like. And--you shall be my queen!"

She caught back another sob. Her clinging arms tightened. "And you will be--what you have always been," she said--"my king--my king--my king!"

In the silence that followed the pa.s.sionate words, Charles Rex very gently loosened the clinging arms, and set her free.

PART IV

CHAPTER I

THE WINNING POST

"I never thought it would be like this," said Toby.

She spoke aloud, though she was alone. She stood at an immense window on the first floor of a busy Paris hotel and stared down into the teeming courtyard below. Her fair face wore a whimsical expression that was half of amus.e.m.e.nt and half of discontent. She looked absurdly young, almost childish; but her blue eyes were unmistakably wistful.