_ PART IV CHAPTER III. A WIFE IS DIFFERENT
"Has he gone?" said Toby eagerly. She came into the room with a swift glance around. "What did he say? What did he do? Was he angry?"
"I really don't know," Saltash said, supremely unconcerned. "He went. That's the main thing."
Toby looked at him critically. "You were so quiet, both of you. Was there a row?"
"Were you listening?" said Saltash.
She coloured, and smiled disarmingly. "Part of the time--no, all the time. But I didn't hear anything--at least not much. Nothing that mattered. Are you angry?"
He frowned upon her, but his eyes reassured. "I told you to smoke a cigarette."
"I'm sorry," said Toby meekly. "Shall I smoke one now?"
He pinched her ear. "No. We'll go out. You've got to shop. First though, I've got something for you. I'm not sure you deserve it, but that's a detail. Few of us ever do get our deserts in this naughty world."
"What is it?" said Toby.
Her bright eyes questioned him. She looked more than ever like an eager boy. He pulled a leather case out of his pocket and held it out to her.
"Oh, what is it?" she said, and coloured more deeply. "You haven't--haven't--been buying me things?"
"Open it!" said Saltash, with regal peremptoriness.
But still she hesitated, till he suddenly laid his hands on hers and compelled her. She saw a single string of pearls on a bed of blue velvet. Her eyes came up to his in quick distress.
"Oh, I ought not to take them!" she said.
"And why not?" said Saltash.
She bit her lip, almost as if she would burst into tears. "Monseigneur--"
"Call me Charles!" he commanded.
His hands still held hers. She dropped her eyes to them, and suddenly, very suddenly, she bent her head and kissed them.
He started slightly, and in a moment he set her free, leaving the case in her hold. "_Eh bien!_" he said lightly. "That is understood. You like my pearls, _cherie_?"
"I love--anything--that comes from you," she made low reply. "But these--but these--I ought not to take these."
"But why not?" he questioned. "May I not make you a present? Are you not--my wife?"
"Yes." More faintly came Toby's answer. "But--but--but--a wife is different. A wife--does not need--presents."
"_Mais vraiment!_" protested Saltash. "So a wife is different! How--different, _mignonne_?"
He tried to look into the downcast eyes, but she would not raise them. She was trembling a little. "Such things as these," she said, under her breath, "are what a man would give to--to--to the woman he loves."
"And so you think they are unsuitable for--my wife?" questioned Saltash, with a whimsical look on his dark face.
She did not answer him, only mutely held out the case, still without looking at him.
He stood for a second or two, watching her, an odd flame coming and going in his eyes; then abruptly he moved, picked up the pearls from their case, straightened them dexterously, and clasped them about her neck.
She lifted her face then, quivering and irresolute, to his. "And I can give you--nothing," she said.
He took her lightly by the shoulders, as one who caresses a child. "_Ma cherie_, you have given me already much more than you realize. But we will not go into that now. We will go to the shops. Afterwards, we will go out to Fontainebleau and picnic in the forest. You will like that?"
"Oh, so much!" she said, with enthusiasm.
Yet there was a puzzled look of pain in her eyes as she turned away, and though she wore his pearls, she made no further reference to them.
They went forth into the streets of Paris and Toby shopped. At first she was shy, halting here and hesitating there, till Saltash, looking on, careless and debonair, made it abundantly evident that whatever she desired she was to have, and then like a child on a holiday she flung aside all indecision and became eager and animated. So absorbed was she that she took no note of the passage of time and was horrified when at length he called her attention to the fact that it was close upon the luncheon-hour.
"And you must be so tired of it all!" she said, with compunction.
"Not in the least," he assured her airily between puffs of his cigarette. "It has been--a new experience for me."
Her eyes challenged him for a moment, and he laughed.
"_Mais oui, madame!_ I protest--a new experience. I feel I am doing my duty."
"And it doesn't bore you?" questioned Toby, with a tilt of the chin.
His look kindled a little. "If we were on board the old _Night Moth_, you'd have had a cuff for that," he remarked.
"I wish we were!" she said daringly.
He flicked his fingers. "You're very young, Nonette."
She shook her head with vehemence. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm only pretending. Can't you see?"
He laughed jestingly. "You have never deceived me yet, _ma chere_,--not once, from the moment I found you shivering in my cabin up to the present. You couldn't if you tried."
Toby's blue eyes suddenly shone with a hot light. "So sure of that?" she said quickly. "You read me--so easily?"
"Like a book," said Saltash, with an arrogance but half-assumed.
"I cheated you--once," she said, breathing sharply.
"And I caught you," said Saltash.
"Only--only because--I meant you to," said Toby, under her breath.
He raised his brows in momentary surprise, and in a flash she laughed and clapped her hands. "I had you there, King Charles! You see, you are but a man after all."
He gave her a swift and piercing glance. "And what are you?" he said.
Her eyes fell swiftly before his look; she made no reply.
They returned to the hotel and lunched together. The incident of the morning seemed to be forgotten. Jake's name was not once mentioned between them. Toby was full of gaiety. The prospect of the run to Fontainebleau evidently filled her with delight.
She joined Saltash in the vestibule after the meal, clad in a light blue wrap they had purchased that morning.
He went to meet her, a quick gleam in his eyes; and a man to whom he had been talking--a slim, foreign-looking man with black moustache and imperial--turned sharply and gave her a hard stare.
Toby's chin went up. She looked exclusively at Saltash. Her bearing at that moment was that of a princess.
"The car is ready?" she questioned. "Shall we go?"
"By all means," said Saltash.
He nodded a careless farewell to the other man, and followed her, a smile twitching at his lips, the gleam still in his eyes.
"That man is Spentoli the sculptor," he said, as he handed her into the car. "A genius, Nonette! I should have presented him to you if you had not been so haughty."
"I hate geniuses," said Toby briefly.
He laughed at her. "_Mais vraiment!_ How many have you known?"
She considered for a moment, and finally decided that the question did not require an answer.
Saltash took the wheel and spun the little car round with considerable dexterity. "Yes, a genius!" he said. "One of the most wonderful of the age. His work is amazing--scarcely human. He paints too. All Paris raves over his work--with reason. His picture, 'The Victim'--" he looked at her suddenly--"What is the matter, _cherie_? Is the sun too strong for you?"
Toby's hand was shielding her eyes. Her lips were trembling. "Don't wait!" she murmured. "Don't wait! Let's get away! I am all right--just a little giddy, that's all."
He took her at her word, and sent the car swiftly forward. They passed out into the crowded thoroughfare, and in a moment or two Toby leaned back, gazing before her with a white, set face.
Saltash asked no question. He did not even look at her, concentrating all his attention upon the task of extricating himself as swiftly as possible from the crush of vehicles around them.
It was a day of perfect autumn, and Paris lay basking in sunshine; but Saltash was a rapid traveller at all times, and it was not long before Paris was left behind. But even when free from the traffic, he did not speak or turn towards his companion, merely gave himself to the task of covering the ground as quickly as possible.
In the end it was Toby who spoke, abruptly, boyishly. "By jingo! You can drive!"
Saltash's face showed its own elastic grin. "You like this?"
"Rather!" said Toby with enthusiasm.
She threw off her silence and plunged forthwith into careless chatter--a mood to which he responded with the utmost readiness. When at length they ran into the shade of the forest, they were both in the highest spirits.
They had their tea in a mossy glade out of sight of the road. The sun was beginning to slant. Its rays fell in splashes of golden green all about them.
"Just the place for a duel!" said Saltash appreciatively.
"Have you ever fought a duel?" Toby looked at him over the picnic-basket with eyes of sparkling interest.
She had thrown aside her hat, and her fair hair gleamed as if it gave forth light. Saltash leaned his shoulders against a tree and watched her.
"I have never fought to kill," he said. "Honour is too easily satisfied in this country--though after all--" his smile was suddenly provocative--"there are very few things worth fighting for, Nonette."
Her eyes flashed their ready challenge. "Life being too short already?" she suggested.
"Even so," said Charles Rex coolly.
Toby abruptly bent her head and muttered something into the picnic-basket.
"What?" said Saltash.
She pulled out a parcel of cakes and tossed them on to the ground. "Nothing!" she said.
He leaned forward unexpectedly as she foraged for more, and gripped the small brown hand.
"Tell me what you said!" he commanded.
She flung him a look half-frightened, half-daring. "I said there was only one cup."
She would have released her hand with the words, but his fingers tightened like a spring. "_Pardonnez-moi!_ That was not what you said!"
She became passive in his hold, but she said nothing.
"Tell me what you said!" Saltash said again.
A little tremor went through Toby. "Can we do--with only one cup?" she asked, not looking at him, her eyelids flickering nervously.
"Going to answer me?" said Saltash.
She shook her head and was silent.
He waited for perhaps ten seconds, and in that time a variety of different expressions showed and vanished on his ugly face. Then, just as Toby was beginning to tremble in real trepidation, he suddenly set her free.
"We have drunk out of the same glass before now," he said. "We can do it again."
She looked at him then, relief and doubt struggling together in her eyes. "Are you angry?" she said.
His answering look baffled her. "No," he said.
She laid a conciliatory hand upon his arm. "You are! I'm sure you are!"
"I am not," said Saltash.
"Then why aren't you?" demanded Toby, with sudden spirit.
The monkeyish grin leapt into his face. "Because I know what you said," he told her coolly. "It is not easy--you will never find it easy--to deceive me."
She snatched her hand away. Her face was on fire. "I said you did not make the most of life," she flung at him. "And it's true! You don't! You don't!"
"How do you know that?" said Saltash.
She did not answer him. Her head was bent over the basket. She threw out one thing after another with nervous rapidity, and once, as he watched her, there came a faint sound that was like a hastily suppressed sob.
Saltash got to his feet with disconcerting suddenness and walked away.
When he returned some minutes later with a half-smoked cigarette between his lips, she was sitting demurely awaiting him, the picnic ready spread.
He scarcely looked at her but he flicked her cheek as he sat down, and in a moment she turned and smiled at him.
"I have found another cup," she said.
"So I see," said Saltash, and before she could realize his mood he picked it up and flung it at the trunk of a tree some yards away. It shivered in fragments on the moss, and Toby gasped and stared at him wide-eyed.
He laughed in his careless fashion at her amazement. "Now we shall drink out of one cup!" he said.
"Was that--was that--why you did it?" she stammered breathlessly.
He blew a cloud of smoke into the air with a gesture of royal indifference. "Even so,--_madame_!" he said. "One does these things--with a wife. You see, a wife--is different."
"I--I see," said Toby. _