The Obstacle Race Part 60

He glanced around him as he clasped her hand, his ugly face br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mischief. "It is rather--considering the risk I run. I trust your irascible husband is well out of the way?"

She laughed, though not very heartily. "Yes, he has gone to town. I didn't want him to. I wish I had stopped him."

He looked at her shrewdly. "You've got an attack of nerves," he observed.

She still sought to smile--though the attempt was a poor one. "To be quite honest--I am rather frightened."

"Frightened!" He pushed a sudden arm around her, looking comical and tender in the same moment. "And so you sent for me! Then it's Ho for the _Night Moth_, and when shall we start?"

She gave him a small push as half-hearted as her laugh had been. "Don't talk rubbish, please, Charles--if you don't mind! I don't see myself going on the _Night Moth_ with the sea like that; do you?"

"Depends," he said quizzically. "You might be persuaded if the devil were behind you."

"What! In your company!" Her laugh was more normal this time; she gave his arm a kindly touch and put it from her.

"But I'm as meek as a lamb," protested Saltash.

She met his look with friendly eyes. "Yes, I know--a lamb in wolf's clothing--rather a frisky lamb, Charles, but comparatively harmless. If I hadn't realized that--I shouldn't have asked you to come."

"I like your qualification," he said. "With whom do I compare thus favourably? The redoubtable d.i.c.k?"

The colour came swiftly into her face and he laughed, derisively but not unkindly.

"It's a new thing for me--this sort of job. Are you sure my lamb-like qualities will carry me through? Do you know, dear, I've never seen you look so amazing sweet in all my life before? I never knew you could bloom like this. It's positively dangerous."

He regarded her critically, his head on one side, an ardour half-mocking, half-genuine, in his eyes.

Juliet uttered a sigh. "I feel a careworn old hag," she said. "My own fault of course. Things are in a nice muddle, and I don't know which way to turn."

"One slip from the path of rect.i.tude!" mocked Saltash. "Alas, how fatal this may prove!"

She looked away from him. "Do you always jeer at your friends when they are in trouble?" she said somewhat wearily.

"Always," said Saltash promptly. "It helps 'em to find their feet--like lighting the fire when the chimney-sweep's boy got stuck in the chimney.

It's a priceless remedy, my _Juliette_. Nothing like it."

"I shall begin to hate you directly," remarked Juliet with her wan smile.

He laughed, not without complacence. "Do you good to try. You won't succeed. No one ever does. I gather the main trouble is that d.i.c.k has gone to town when you didn't want him to. Husbands are like that sometimes, you know. Are you afraid he won't come back--or that he will?"

"He will come back--to-day," she said. "You know--or perhaps you don't know--there is going to be a concert to-night for the miners.

He is going to talk to them afterwards. He has gone up to-day to see--Ivor Yardley."

"What ho!" said Saltash. "This is interesting. And what does he hope to get out of him?"

"I don't know," she said. "I had no idea who he was going to see till yesterday evening. Mr. Ashcott came in and they were talking, and the name came out. I am not sure that he wanted me to know--though I don't know why I think so."

"And so you sent me an S.O.S.!" said Saltash. "I am indeed honoured!"

She turned towards him very winningly, very appealingly. "Charles Rex, I sent for you because I want a friend--so very badly. My happiness is in the balance. Don't you understand?"

Her deep voice throbbed with feeling. He stretched out a hand to her with a quick, responsive gesture that somehow belied the imp of mischief in his eyes. "_Bien, ma Juliette_! I am here!" he said.

"Thank you," she said very earnestly. "I knew I could count on you--that you would not withdraw your protection when once you had offered it."

"Would you like my advice as well?" he questioned.

She met his quizzing look with her frank eyes. "What is your advice?" she said.

He held her hand in his. "You haven't forgotten, have you, the sole condition on which I extended my protection to you? No. I thought not. We won't discuss it. The time is not yet ripe. And, as you say, the _Night Moth_ in this weather, though safe, might not be a very comfortable abiding-place. But--don't forget she is quite safe, my _Juliette_! I should like you to remember that."

He spoke with a strange emphasis that must in some fas.h.i.+on have conveyed more than his actual words, for quite suddenly her throat worked with a sharp spasm of emotion. She put up her hand instinctively to hide it.

"Thank you," she said. "If I need--a city of refuge--I shall know which way to turn. Now for your advice!"

"My advice!" He was looking at her with those odd, unstable eyes of his that ever barred the way to his inner being. "It depends a little on the condition of your heart--that. When it comes to this in an obstacle race, there are three courses open to you. Either you refuse the jump and drop out--which is usually the safest thing to do. Or you take the thing at full gallop and clear it before you know where you are. Or you go at it with a weak heart and come to grief. I don't advise the last anyway. It's so futile--as well as being beastly humiliating."

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Charles! A very illuminating parable!

Well, I don't contemplate the first--as you know. I must have a try at the second. And if I smash,--it's horribly difficult, you know--I may smash--" Sudden anguish looked at him out of her eyes, and a hard s.h.i.+ver went through her as she turned away. "Oh, Charles!" she said. "Why did I ever come to this place?"

He made a frightful grimace that was somehow sympathetic and shrugged his shoulders. "If you smash, my dearly-beloved, your faithful comrade will have the priceless privilege of picking up the pieces. Why you came here is another matter. I have sometimes dared to wonder if the proximity of my poor castle--No? Not that? Ah, well then, it must be that our destinies are guided by the same star. To my mind that is an even more thrilling reflection than the other. Think of it, my _Juliette_, you and I--helplessly kicking like flies in the cream-jug--being drawn to one another, irresistibly and in spite of ourselves, even leaving some of our legs behind us in the desperate struggle to be calm and reasonable and quite--quite moral! And then a sudden violent storm in the cream-jug, and we are flung into each other's unwilling arms where we cling for safety till the crack of doom when all the milk is spilt! It's no use fighting the stars, you know. It really isn't. The only rational course is to make the stars fight for you."

He peered round at her to see how she was taking his foolery; and in a moment impulsively she wheeled back, the distress banished from her face, the old steadfast courage in its place.

"Oh, Charles, thou king of clowns!" she said. "What a weird comforter you are!"

"King of philosophers you mean!" he retorted. "It's taken me a long while to achieve my wisdom. I don't often throw my pearls about in this reckless fas.h.i.+on."

She laughed. "How dare you say that to me? But I suppose I ought to be humbly grateful. I am as a matter of fact intensely so."

"Oh, no!" he said. "Not that--from you!"

His eyes dwelt upon her with a sort of humorous tenderness; she met them without embarra.s.sment. "You've done me good, Charles," she said.

"Somehow I knew you would--knew I could count on you. You will go on standing by?"

He executed a deep bow, his hand upon his heart. "_Maintenant et toujours, ma Juliette_!" he a.s.sured her gallantly. "But don't forget the moral of my parable! When you jump--jump high!"

She nodded thoughtfully. "No, I shan't forget. You're a good friend, Charles Rex."

"I may be," said Saltash enigmatically.

CHAPTER V

THE THUNDERBOLT