Charles Rex | Page 4

and go back to your work!"
"Easy! Easy!" said Saltash, with a smile. "We don't talk to the English like that, Antonio,--not even the smallest and weakest of them. Let's have a look at this specimen--with your permission!" He bent over the huddled figure. "Hold up your head, boy! Let me see you!"
There was no movement to obey, and he laid a hand upon the quivering shoulder and felt it shrink away convulsively.
"I believe you've damaged him," he said, bending lower. "Here, Tommy! Hold up your head! Don't be afraid! It's a friend."
But the narrow figure only sank down a little lower under his hand.
"His name is Toby," said Antonio with acidity. "A dog's name, milord, and it fits him well. He is what you would call a lazy hound."
Saltash paid not the slightest attention to him. He was bending low, his dark face in shadow.
"Don't be afraid!" he said again. "No one is going to hurt you. Come along! Let's look at you!"
His hold tightened upon the shrinking form. He began to lift it up.
And then suddenly there came a sharp struggle between his hands as lacking in science as the fight of a wild animal for freedom, and as effectual. With a gasping effort the boy wrenched himself free and was gone. He went like a streak of lightning, and the two men were left facing one another.
"What a slippery little devil!" commented Saltash.
"Yes," said Antonio vindictively, "a devil indeed, milord! And I will have no more of him. I will have no more. I hope he will starve!"
"How awfully nice of you, Antonio!" said Saltash lightly. "Being the end of the season, he probably will."
Antonio smacked his red lips with relish. "Ah, probably! Probably!" he said.

CHAPTER II
ADIEU
It was growing late and the _f��te_ was in full swing when Saltash sauntered down again under the cypress-trees to the water's edge. The sea was breaking with a murmurous splashing; it was a night for dreams.
In the flower-decked bandstand an orchestra of stringed instruments was playing very softly--fairy-music that seemed to fill the world with magic to the brim. It was like a drug to the senses, alluring, intoxicating, maddeningly sweet.
Saltash wandered along with his face to the water on which a myriad coloured lights rocked and swam. And still his features wore that monkeyish look of unrest, of discontent and quizzical irony oddly mingled. He felt the lure, but it was not strong enough. Its influence had lost its potency.
He need not have been alone. He had left the hotel with friends, but he had drifted away from them in the crowd. One of them--a girl--had sought somewhat palpably to keep him near her, and he had responded with some show of ardour for a time, and then something about her had struck a note of discord within him and the glamour had faded.
"Little fool!" he murmured to himself. "She'd give me her heart to break if I'd have it."
And then he laughed in sheer ridicule of his own jaded senses. He recognized the indifference of satiety. An easy conquest no longer attracted him.
He began to stroll towards the quay, loitering here and there as if to give to Fates a chance to keep him if they would. Yes, Sheila Melrose was a little idiot. Why couldn't she realize that she was but one of the hundreds with whom he flirted day by day? She was nothing to him but a pastime--a toy to amuse his wayward mood. He had outgrown his earlier propensity to break his toys when he had done with them. The sight of a broken toy revolted him now.
He was impatiently aware that the girl was watching him from the midst of the shifting crowd. What did she expect, he asked himself irritably? She knew him. She knew his reputation. Did she imagine herself the sort of woman to hold a man of his stamp for more than the passing moment? Save for his title and estates, was he worth the holding?
A group of laughing Italian girls with kerchiefs on their heads surrounded him suddenly and he became the centre of a shower--a storm--of confetti. His mood changed in a second. He would show her what to expect! Without an instant's pause he turned upon his assailants, caught the one nearest to him, snatching her off her feet; and, gripping her without mercy, he kissed her fierily and shamelessly till she gasped with delicious fright; then dropped her and seized another.
The girls of Valrosa spoke of the ugly Englishman with bated breath and shining eyes long after Saltash had gone his unheeding way, for the blood was hot in his veins before the game was over. If the magic had been slow to work, its spell was all the more compelling when it gripped him. Characteristically,