Charles Rex Part 37

"You don't want to go and talk to those people. Come with me and see the ponies!"

She responded with characteristic eagerness to the invitation. "Shall I?

But won't Maud mind? Do you think I ought?"

"Of course you ought," he rejoined with decision. "Maud won't care. I'll bring you back to her before the play begins."

He drew her away through the crowd, and she went with him without further demur. Bunny was tall and bore himself with distinction. There was, moreover, something rather compelling about him just then, and Toby felt the attraction. She suffered the hand that grasped her own.

"Look here!" he said abruptly, as they drew apart from the throng. "I've got to see more of you somehow. Have you been dodging me all this time?"

"I?" said Toby.

She met his eyes with a funny little chuckle. There was spontaneous mischief in his own.

He gave her hand an admonitory squeeze. "I'm not laughing. You're not playing the game. What's the good of my coming to the house to see you if we never meet?"

"Don't understand," said Toby briefly.

"Yes, you do. Or you can if you try. You never seem to have any liberty now-a-days. Is it Maud's doing or your own?"

Toby laughed again lightly and bafflingly. "I can do anything I want to do," she said.

"Oh, can you?" Bunny pounced. "Then you've got to meet me sometimes away from the rest. See? Come! That's only fair."

Toby made a face at him. "Suppose I don't want to?" she said.

He laughed into her eyes. "Don't tell me that! When and where?"

She laughed back. He was hard to resist. "I don't know. I'm too busy."

"Rot!" said Bunny.

"You're very rude," she remarked.

"I'll be ruder when I get the chance," he laughed. "Listen, I want to see you alone very badly. You're not going to let me down."

"I don't know what I'm going to do yet," said Toby.

But she could not look with severity into the handsome young face that was bent to hers. It was not in her to repulse a friendly influence. She had to respond.

"I'll tell you what you're going to do," said Bunny, marking her weakening with cheery a.s.surance. "You'll take Chops for a walk to-morrow evening through the Burchester Woods. You know that gate by the larch copse? It's barely a mile across the down. Be there at seven, and perhaps--who knows?--perhaps--Chops may meet somebody he's rather fond of."

"And again perhaps he mayn't," said Toby, suppressing a dimple.

"Oh, I say, that's shabby! You'll give him the chance anyhow?"

The pleading note sounded in Bunny's voice. Toby suddenly dropped her eyes. She looked as if she were bracing herself to refuse.

Bunny saw and quickly grappled with the danger. "Give him the chance!" he urged softly into her ear. "You won't be sorry--afterwards."

She did not lift her eyes, but somehow the enchantment held. By a bold stroke he had entered her defences, and she could not for the moment drive him out. She was silent.

"You'll come?" whispered Bunny.

They were nearing a little group of ponies that were being held in readiness at the end of the field. Toby quickened her pace.

He kept beside her, but he did not speak again. And perhaps his silence moved her more than speech, for she gave a little impulsive turn towards him and threw him her sudden, boyish smile.

"All right. We'll come," she said.

"Hooray!" crowed Bunny softly.

"But I shan't stay long," she warned him. "And if I don't like it, I shall never come again."

"You will like it," said Bunny with confidence.

"I wonder," said Toby with her chin in the air.

CHAPTER III

L'OISEAU BLEU

Bunny surpa.s.sed himself that afternoon. Wherever he went, success seemed to follow, and shouts of applause reached him from all quarters.

"That young fellow is a positive genius," commented General Melrose, who had a keen eye for the game. "He ought to be in the Service. Why isn't he, Mrs. Bolton?"

"He wasn't considered strong enough," Maud said. "It was a great disappointment to him. You see, he spent the whole of his childhood on his back with spine trouble. And when that was put right he outgrew his strength."

"Ah! I remember now. You used to wheel the poor little beggar about in a long chair. Well, he's rather different now from what he was in those days. Not much the matter with him, is there?"

"Nothing now," Maud said.

"What does he do with himself?" asked the General, surveying the distant figure at that moment galloping in a far corner of the field.

"He is agent on Lord Saltash's estate at Burchester," his daughter said, suddenly entering the conversation. "He was telling me about it at luncheon. He and Lord Saltash are friends."

"Ah! To be sure!" General Melrose's look suddenly came to Maud and she felt herself colour a little.

"He is an old friend of the family," she said. "We live not far from the Castle. My husband owns the Graydown Stables."

"Oh, I know that," the General said courteously. "I know your husband, Mrs. Bolton, and I am proud to know him. What I did not know until to-day was that he was your husband. I never heard of your marriage."

"We have been married for eight years," she said with a smile.

"It must be at least ten since I saw you last," he said. "This girl of mine--Sheila--must have been at school in those days. You never met her?"