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"How long is this absurd farce to go on?" said Larpent.
"Aren't you enjoying yourself?" grinned Saltash.
Larpent looked sardonic.
Saltash took up the whisky decanter. "My worthy buccaneer, you don't know when you're lucky. If I had a reputation like yours—" He broke off, still grinning. "Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk, is it? Let's spill some whisky instead! Say when!"
Larpent watched him, frowning. "Thanks! That's enough. I should like an answer to my question if you've no objection. How long is this practical joke going to last?"
Saltash turned and looked upon him with a calculating eye. "I really don't know what's troubling you," he remarked. "You've got everything in your favour. I'd change places with you with all the pleasure in the world if circumstances permitted."
"That isn't the point, is it?" said Larpent.
"No? What is the point?" Saltash turned again to the whisky decanter.
"Well, you've got me into a damn' hole, and I want to know how you're going to get me out again." Larpent's voice was gruff and surly; he stared into his tumbler without drinking.
Saltash chuckled to himself with mischievous amusement. "My dear chap, I can't get you out. That's just it. I want you to stay there."
Larpent muttered deeply and inarticulately, and began to drink.
Saltash turned round, glass in hand, and sat down on the edge of the high, cushioned fender. "I really don't think you are greatly to be pitied," he remarked lightly. "The child will soon be married and off your hands."
"Oh, that's the idea, is it?" said Larpent. "Who's going to marry her?
Young Brian?"
"Don't you approve?" said Saltash.
"I don't think it'll come off," said Larpent with decision.
"Why not?" An odd light flickered in the younger man's eyes for an instant. "Are you going to refuse your consent?"
"I?" Larpent shrugged his shoulders. "Are you going to give yours?"
Saltash made an elaborate gesture. "I shall bestow my blessing with both hands."
Larpent looked at him fixedly for a few seconds. "You're a very wonderful man, my lord," he remarked drily at length.
Saltash laughed. "Have you only just discovered that?"
Larpent drained his tumbler gravely and put it down. "All the same, I don't believe it will come off," he said.
Saltash moved impatiently. "You always were an unbeliever. But anyone can see they were made for each other. Of course it will come off."
"You want it to come off?" asked Larpent.
"It is my intention that it shall," said Saltash royally.
"You're playing providence in the girl's interest. Is that it?" Again Larpent's eyes, shrewd and far-seeing, were fixed upon him. They held a glint of humour. "It's a tricky job, my lord. You'll wish you hadn't before you've done."
"Think so?" said Saltash.
"If you haven't begun to already," said Larpent.
Saltash looked down at him with a comical twist of the eyebrows. "You're very analytical to-night. What's the matter?"
"Nothing," said Larpent bluntly. "Except that you're making a mistake."
"Indeed?" For a moment Saltash's look was haughty; then he began to smile again. "I see you're burning to give your advice," he said tolerantly. "Fire away, if it does you any good!"
Larpent's eyes, very steady under their fair, bushy brows, were still unwaveringly upon him. "No, I don't presume to give you advice," he said. "But I'll tell you something which you may or may not know. That young woman you have so kindly bestowed upon me as a daughter worships the ground you tread on, and—that being the case—she isn't very likely to make a dazzling success of it if she marries young Bernard Brian."
He ceased to speak, and simultaneously Saltash jerked himself to his feet with a short French oath that sounded like the snarl of an angry animal. He went across to the windows that were thrown wide to the summer night and stood before one of them with his head flung back in the attitude of one who challenges the universe.
Larpent lay back in his chair with the air of a man who has said his say. He did not even glance towards his companion, and there followed a considerable pause before either of them spoke again.
Abruptly at length Saltash wheeled.
"Larpent!" There was something of a whip-lash quality about his voice; it seemed to cut the silence. "Why the devil do you tell me this? Can't you see that it's the very thing I'm guarding against? Young Bunny is the best remedy she could take for a disease of that kind. And after all,—she's only a child."
"Do you say that for your own benefit or for mine?" said Larpent, without turning his head.
"What do you mean?" Savagely Saltash flung the question, but the man in the chair remained unmoved.
"You know quite well what I mean," he said. "You know that it isn't true."
"What isn't true?" Saltash came swiftly back across the room, moving as if goaded. He took his tumbler from the mantel-piece and drank the contents almost at a gulp. "Go on!" he said, with his back to Larpent. "May as well finish now you've begun. What isn't true?"
Larpent lounged in his chair and watched him, absolutely unmoved.
"When a thing is actually in existence—an accomplished fact—it's rather futile to talk of guarding against it," he said, in his brief, unsympathetic voice. "You've been extraordinarily generous to the imp, and it isn't surprising that she should be extraordinarily grateful. She wouldn't be human if she weren't. But when it comes to handing her on to another fellow—well, she may consent, but it won't be because she wants to, but because it's the only thing left. She knows well enough by this time that what she really wants is out of her reach."
Again Saltash made a fierce movement, but he did not turn or speak.
Larpent took out his pipe and began to fill it. "You've been too good a friend to her," he went on somewhat grimly, "and you're not made of the right stuff for that sort of thing. I'm sorry for the kid because she's a bit of a pagan too, and it's hard to have to embrace respectability whether you want to or not."
"Oh, damn!" Saltash exclaimed, suddenly and violently. "What more could any man have done? What the devil are you driving at?"
He turned upon Larpent almost menacingly, and found the steady eyes, still with that icy glint of humour in them, unflinchingly awaiting his challenge.
"You want to get married," the sailor said imperturbably. "Why in the name of all the stars of destiny don't you marry her? She may not have the blue blood in her veins, but blood isn't everything, and you've got enough for two. And it's my opinion you'd find her considerably easier to please than some—less strict in her views too, which is always an advantage to a man of your varying moods."
Saltash's laugh had a curious jarring sound as of something broken. "Oh, you think that would be a suitable arrangement, do you? And how long do you think I should stick to her? How long would it be before she ran away?"
"I never speculate so far as you are concerned," said Larpent, shaking the tobacco back into his pouch with care.
"You think it wouldn't matter, perhaps?" gibed Saltash. "My royal house is so inured to scandal that no one would expect anything else?"
"I don't think she is the sort to run away," said Larpent quietly. "And
I'm pretty sure of one thing. You could hold her if you tried."
"An ideal arrangement!" sneered Saltash. "And I should then settle down to a godly, righteous, and sober life, I suppose? Is that the idea?"
"You said it," observed Larpent, pushing his pipe into his mouth.
Saltash lodged one foot on the high fender, and stared at it. The sneer died out of his face and the old look, half mischievous, half melancholy, took its pace. "I haven't—seriously—contemplated marriage for eight years," he said, his mouth twitching a little as with a smile suppressed. "Not since the day I tried to steal Maud Brian away from Jake—and failed—rather signally. I don't think I've ever done anything quite so low down since."
Larpent lighted his pipe with grave attention. "A good thing for you both that you did fail!" he observed.
"Think so?" Saltash glanced at him. "Why?"
"She isn't the woman for you." Larpent spoke with the absolute conviction of one who knows. "She has too many ideals. Now this sprat you caught at Valrosa—has none."
"Not so sure of that," said Saltash.
"Well, no illusions anyway." There was a hint of compassion in Larpent's voice. "It wasn't because she trusted you that she put herself under your protection. She didn't trust you. She simply chucked herself at you with her eyes open. Like Jonah's whale, you were the only shelter within reach. I'd wager a substantial sum that she's never had any illusions about you. But if you held up your little finger she'd come to you. She's your property, and it isn't in her to do anything else, let her down as often as you will."
Saltash made an excruciating grimace. "My good fellow, spare me! That's just where the shoe pinches. I've broken faith with her already. But—damnation!—what else could I do? I didn't choose the part of virtuous hero. It was thrust upon me. The gods are making sport of me. I am lost in a labyrinth of virtue, and horribly—most horribly—sick of it. I nearly broke through once, but the wreck pulled me up, and when I recovered from that, I was more hopelessly lost than before."
"So you are not enjoying it either!" remarked Larpent, with the glimmer of a smile. "But you don't seem to have let her down very far."
Saltash brought his foot down with a bang. "I swore I'd keep her with me. I meant—oh, God knows what I meant to do. I didn't do it anyway. I broke my oath and I made her go, and she never uttered a word of reproach—not one word! Do you think I'll let her ruin herself by marrying me after that? Like Jonah's whale I've managed to throw her up on to dry land, and if she gets swamped again, it won't be my fault."
He began to laugh again suddenly and cynically—the bitter laugh of a man who hides his soul; and Larpent leaned back in his chair again, as if he recognized that the discussion was over.
"I don't suppose anyone will blame you for it," he said.
"No one will have the chance," said Saltash.