The Obstacle Race Part 40

"Will you be pleased to enter!" he said, in the tone of one issuing a royal command.

But she hung for a moment, looking back with a strange wistfulness at the man she was leaving. The imprisoned air came out into the hot sunshine like a cold vapour. She shivered a little.

"d.i.c.k!" she said.

He stopped at the foot of the outside steps looking up at her. His eyes were extremely bright, and something within her shrank from their straight regard. It conveyed possession, dominance; almost it conveyed a menace.

"When you have found them, come and--tell me!" she said.

He lifted his hat to her with punctilious courtesy, and turned away. "I will," he said.

"That's a masterful sort of person," observed Saltash, as they mounted the dimly-lit turret stair. "What does he do for a living?"

Juliet hesitated, conscious of a strong repugnance to discuss her lover with this man from her old world whom, strangely, at that moment, she felt that she knew so infinitely better. But she could not withhold an answer to so ordinary a question. Moreover Saltash could be imperious when he chose, and she knew instinctively that it was not wise to cross him.

"By profession," she said slowly at length, "he is--a village schoolmaster."

Saltash's laugh stung, though it was exactly what she had expected. But he qualified it the next moment with careless generosity.

"Quite a presentable cavalier, _ma Juliette_! And a fixed occupation is something of an advantage at times, _n'est-ce-pas?--Je t'aime, tu l'aime_! And how soon do you ride away? Or is that question premature?"

Juliet's face burned in the dimness, but she was in front of him and thankfully aware that he could not see it. "I am not answering any more questions, Charles," she said. "Now that you have got me into your ogre's castle, you must be--kind."

"I will be kindness itself," he a.s.sured her. "You know I am the soul of hospitality. All I have is yours."

The narrow stair ended at a small stone landing on which was a door.

Juliet stepped aside as she reached it, and waited for her host. "It's rather like a prison," she said.

"You won't think so when you get through that door," he said. "By Jove!

To think that I've actually got you--you of all people!--here in my stronghold! Do you realize that without my permission you can't possibly get out again?"

Juliet's laugh was absolutely spontaneous. She faced him in that narrow s.p.a.ce with the poise and confidence of a queen. The light from a window that pierced the wall above shone down upon her. In that moment she was endowed with an extraordinary beauty that was more of being, of personality, than of feature.

"It is exactly this that I have played for, Charles Rex," she said. "You hold all the cards, _mon ami_. But--the game is mine."

"How so?" He was looking at her curiously, a dancing demon in his eyes.

She put out her hand to him, and as he took it, sank to the stone floor in a superb curtsy. "Because I claim your gracious protection, my lord the king. I ask your royal favour."

He lifted her hand to his lips as she rose. "You are--as ever--quite irresistible, _ma Juliette_," he smiled. "But--do you really contemplate marrying this fortunate young man? Because there are limits--even to my generosity. I am not sure that I can permit that."

Her eyes looked straight into his. "You can do--anything you choose to do, Charles Rex," she said; "except one thing."

He made a grimace at her. "I am king in my own castle anyway," he observed, watching her. "And you are at my mercy."

"It is your mercy that I am waiting for," she said, a faint smile at the corners of her lips.

"Ah!" he said, stood a moment longer, contemplating her, then turned abruptly and flung open the door against which he stood.

It led into a winding pa.s.sage of such a totally different character from the stone staircase they had just mounted that Juliet stood gazing down it for some seconds before she obeyed his mute gesture to pa.s.s through. It was thickly carpeted, deadening all sound, and the walls were hung with some heavy material, in the colour of old oak. It was lighted by three long perpendicular slits of windows, let into a twelve-foot thickness of wall. Juliet had a glimpse of many pine trees as she pa.s.sed them.

The pa.s.sage ended in heavy curtains of the same dark-brown material. She stopped and looked at her companion.

"What is it?" he said, with a laugh. "Are you afraid of my inner sanctuary?"

He parted the curtains, disclosing a tall oak door. She saw no latch upon it, but his hand went up behind the curtain, and she heard the click of a spring. In a moment the tall door opened before her.

"Go in!" he said easily.

She entered a strange room, oak-panelled, shaped like a cone, lighted only by a gla.s.s dome in the roof. It was the most curious chamber she had ever seen. She trod on a tiger-skin as she entered, and noted that the floor was covered with them. There was no chair anywhere, only a long, deep couch, also draped with tiger-skins. Tiger faces glared at her from all directions. She heard the door click behind her and turning realized that it had disappeared in the oak panelling against which her host was standing.

He laughed at her quizzically, "I believe you are frightened."

She looked around her, seeing no exit anywhere. "It is just the sort of freak apartment I should expect you to delight in," she said.

"You wouldn't have come if you had known, would you?" he said, a faint note of jeering in his voice.

"Of course I should!" said Juliet.

"Of course!" he mocked. "I am such a peculiarly safe person, am I not?

Every member of your charming s.e.x trusts me instinctively."

She turned and faced him. "Don't be ridiculous, Charles! You see, I happen to know you."

He looked at her with something of the air of a monkey that contemplates s.n.a.t.c.hing some forbidden thing. "Why did you run away?" he said.

She hesitated. "That's a hard question, isn't it?"

"Oh, don't mind me!" he said. "I don't flatter myself I was the cause."

Her dark brows were slightly drawn. "No, you were not," she said. "It was just--it was Lady Jo herself, Charlie. No one else."

"Ah!" His goblin smile flashed out at her. "Poor erring Lady Jo! Don't be too hard on her! She has her points."

She laid her hand quickly on his arm. "Don't try to defend her! She is quite despicable. I have done with her."

His hand was instantly on hers. He laughed into her eyes. "I'll wager you have a lingering fellow-feeling for her even yet."

"Not since she was reported to have run away with you," countered Juliet.

He laughed aloud. "Ah! She forfeited your sympathy there, did she? _Mais, Juliette_--" his voice sank suddenly upon a caressing note, "there are few women to whom I could not give happiness--for a time."

"I know," said Juliet, and drew her hand away. "That is why we all admire you so. But even you, most potent Charles, couldn't satisfy a woman who was wanting--some one else."

"You don't think I could make her forget?" he said.

She shook her head, smiling. "When the real thing comes along, all shams must go overboard. It's the rule of the game."

"And this is the real thing?" he questioned.