THE TRUTH
He went with careless tread as his fashion was, whistling the gay air to
which all England was dancing that season. His swarthy countenance wore
the half-mischievous, half-amused expression with which it was his custom
to confront--and baffle--the world at large. No one knew what lay behind
that facile mask. Only the very few suspected that it hid aught beyond a
genial wickedness of a curiously attractive type.
His spurs rang upon the white stones, and Sheila Melrose, standing beside
her father's car in the shadow of some buildings, turned sharply and saw
him. Her face was pale; it had a strained expression. But it changed at
sight of him. She regarded him with that look of frozen scorn which once
she had flung him when they had met in the garish crowd at Valrosa.
Bunny was stooping over the car, but he became aware of Saltash almost in
the same moment, and stood up straight to face him. Sheila was pale, but
he was perfectly white, and there were heavy drops of perspiration on his
forehead. He looked full at Saltash with eyes of blazing accusation.
Saltash's face never changed as he came up to the car. He ceased to
whistle, but the old whimsical look remained. He seemed unaware of any
tension.
"Car all right?" he asked smoothly. "Can I lend a hand? The general is
beginning to move."
Sheila turned without a word and got into the car.
Bunny neither moved nor spoke. He stood like a man paralysed. It was
Saltash who, with that royal air of amusing himself, stooped to the
handle and started the engine.
The girl at the wheel did not even thank him. She looked beyond. Only as
he stood aside and the car slid forward, she turned stiffly to Bunny.
"Good-bye!" she said.
He made a jerky movement. Their eyes met for a single second. "You will
write?" he said.
His throat was working spasmodically, the words seemed to come with
gigantic effort. She bent her head in answer and passed between them
through the white gate into the drive that led round to the house.
Saltash turned with a lightning movement to Bunny. "Walk back with me and
we can talk!" he said.
Bunny drew sharply back. The movement was one of instinctive recoil. But
still no words came. He stood staring at Saltash, and he was trembling
from head to foot.
"Don't be an ass now!" Saltash said, and his voice was oddly gentle, even
compassionate. "You've stumbled on a mare's nest. It's all right. I can
explain."
Bunny controlled himself with a jerk. His face was like death, but he
found his voice. "You can keep your damned lies to yourself," he said.
"I've no use for them."
The prod of a riding-switch against his shoulder made him start as a
spirited animal starts at the touch of a spur. But Saltash only laughed.
"You'll fight me for that!" he said.
"I wouldn't touch you!" flung back Bunny.
"Oh, wouldn't you?" The odd eyes mocked him openly. "Then you withdraw
the insult--with apologies?"
"Apologise--to you!" said Bunny.
"Or fight!" said Saltash. "I think that would do you more good than the
other, but you shall decide."
"I will do neither," said Bunny, and turned his back with the words.
"I've--done with you."
"You're wrong!" said Saltash. "You've got to face it, and you won't get
the truth from anyone but me. That girl knows nothing, Bunny!" His voice
was suddenly curt, with that in it which very few ever heard. "Turn
around! Do you hear? Turn round--damn you! I'll kick you if you don't!"
Bunny turned. It was inevitable. They stood face to face. Then Saltash,
the mockery gone from his eyes, reached out abruptly and gripped him
by the arm. His touch was electric. For that moment--only for that
moment--he was dangerous. There was something of the spring of a tiger in
his action.
"You damn fool!" he said, and he spoke between his teeth. "Do you suppose
even I would play such a blackguard's game as that?"
"Let me go!" Bunny said through white lips. "Facts are facts."
Saltash's hold did not slacken. "Where's Jake?" he said.
"Jake's away."
"Confound him! Just when he's wanted!" The ferocity died out of Saltash
like the glow from cinders blown from a furnace. "Well, listen! I swear
to you by all that is sacred that you're making a mistake. Sheila has
told you a certain thing that is true, so far as it goes. But you've let
your imagination run away with you. The rest is false."
He spoke with an emphasis that carried weight, and Bunny was moved in
spite of himself. His own fire died down.
Saltash saw his advantage and pressed it. "If Jake were here, he'd tell
you I was speaking the truth, and you'd believe him. You're on a wrong
scent. So far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to follow it to blazes.
I'm used to pleasantries of that sort from my friends. But I'm damned if
I'll let that child be tripped for nothing. Do you hear, Bunny?" He shook
the arm he gripped impatiently. "I'll see you in hell first!"
Bunny's mouth twisted with a painful effort to smile. "I'm in hell now,"
he said.
"Why the devil did you listen?" said Saltash. "Look here! We've got to
have this thing out. Send a man along with my horse and walk across the
park with me!"
He had gained his point by sheer insistence, and he knew it. Bunny knew
it also and cursed himself for a weak fool as he moved to comply. With
Saltash's blade through his heart, he yet could somehow find it possible
to endure him.
He went with him in silence, hating the magnetism he found it impossible
to resist. They passed through the shrubberies that skirted the house,
and so to the open down.
Then in his sudden fashion, crudely and vehemently, Saltash began his
defence.
"It's not my way," he said, "to give an answer to any man who questions;
but you haven't stooped to question. So I tell you the truth. Sheila saw
Toby working as a page at the Casino Hotel at Valrosa. That right? I
thought so. It's the whole matter in a nutshell. I must have seen her
too, but never noticed her till my last night in the place. Then I found
Antonio hammering the poor little beggar out in the garden, and I stopped
it. You'd have done the same. Afterwards, late that night, I went on
board the yacht and found her down in the saloon--a stowaway. The yacht
had started. I could have put back. I didn't. You wouldn't have done
either. She took refuge with me. I sheltered her. She came to me as a
boy. I treated her as such."
"You knew?" flung in Bunny.
Saltash's grin flashed across his dark features like a meteor through a
cloudy sky and was gone. "I--suspected, _mon ami_. But--I did not even
tell myself." That part of him that was French--a species of volatile
sentimentality--sounded in the words like the echo of a laugh in a minor
key. "I made a valet of her. I suffered her to clean my boots and brush
my clothes. I kept her in order--with this--upon occasion."
He held up the switch he carried.
"I don't believe it," said Bunny bluntly.
Saltash's shoulders went up. "You please yourself, _mon cher_. I am
telling you the truth. I treated her like a puppy. I was kind to her, but
never extravagantly kind. But I decided--eventually I decided--that it
was time to turn home. No game can last forever. So we returned, and on
our last night at sea we were rammed and sunk. Naturally that spoilt--or
shall I say somewhat precipitated?--my plans. We were saved, the two
of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman
on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, _mon
ami_, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had
to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's
daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it
if you had, I'll wager."
He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam of
triumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's. He
moved heavily, staring straight before him, his face drawn in hard lines
of misery.
"Well," Saltash said, "that's all I have done. You now know the truth,
simple and unadorned, as Sheila Melrose in her simplicity does not know
it and probably would not comprehend it if she did."
"Leave her out of it!" said Bunny, in a strangled voice. "It was--the
obvious conclusion."
"Oh, the obvious!" Cynicism undisguised caught up the word. "Only the
young and innocent can ever really say with any conviction what is the
obvious way of blackguards. You don't know it--neither do I. A single
decent impulse on the part of a blackguard can upset all the calculations
of the virtuous. Oh, Bunny, you fool, what do you want to wreck things
for at this stage? Can't you see you've got a gift from the gods? Take
it, man, and be thankful that you're considered worthy of it!"
Bunny made a sharp movement of protest. Saltash was looking at him with
half-humorous compassion as one looks at a child with a damaged toy, and
he was keenly conscious of being at a disadvantage. But though checked,
he was not defeated. Saltash had made out a case for himself. He had in a
measure vindicated Toby. But that was not the end of the matter.
He stopped and faced him. "Why were you so anxious for me to marry her?"
he said. "I've got to know that."
He was instantly aware that Saltash eluded him, even though he seemed to
meet his look as he made reply. "You are quite welcome to know it, _mon
ami_. I chance to take a fatherly interest in you both."
Bunny flinched a little. Something in the light reply had pierced him
though he could not have said how. "That's all?" he asked rather thickly.
"That is quite all," said Saltash, and faintly smiled--the smile of the
practised swordsman behind the blade.
Bunny stood for some moments regarding him, his boyish face stern and
troubled. Up to that point, against his will, he had believed him; from
it, he believed him no longer. But--he faced the truth however it might
gall him--he was pitted against a skilled fencer, and he was powerless.
Experience could baffle him at every turn.
"Do you tell me you have never realized that she cared for you?" he
blurted forth abruptly, and there was something akin to agony in his
utterance of the words. He knew that he was baring his breast for the
stroke as he forced them out.
But Saltash did not strike. Just for an instant he showed surprise.
Then--quite suddenly he lowered his weapon. He faced Bunny with a smile
of comradeship.
"Quite honestly, Bunny," he said, "if I had realized it, it wouldn't have
made any difference. I have no use for sentimental devotion at my age.
She has never been more to me than--a puppy that plays with your hand."
"Ah," Bunny said, and swung away from him with the words. "I suppose that
is how you treat them all. Women and dogs--they're very much alike."
"Not in every respect," said Saltash. "I should say that Toby is an
exception anyway. She knows play from earnest."
"Does she?" said Bunny. He paused a moment, as if trying to concentrate
his forces; then he turned to Saltash again. "I'm going back now. I can't
dine with you--though I've no desire to quarrel. But you see--you must
understand--that I can never--accept anything from you again. I'm
sorry--but I can't."
"What are you going to do?" said Saltash.
Bunny hesitated, his boyish face a white mask of misery.
Saltash reached out a second time and touched him lightly, almost
caressingly, with the point of his switch. "What's the matter with you,
Bunny?" he said. "Think I've lied to you?"
Bunny met his look. "I don't want to quarrel with you," he said. "It
isn't--somehow it isn't--worth it."
"Thanks!" said Saltash, and briefly laughed. "You place my friendship at
a pretty high figure then. Tell me what you're going to do!"
"What is it to you what I do?" A quick gleam shone for an instant in
Bunny's eyes, dispelling the look of stricken misery. "I'm not asking you
to help me."
"I've grasped that," said Saltash. "But even so, I may be able to lend a
hand. As you say, there is not much point in our quarrelling. There's
nothing to quarrel about that I can see--except that you've called me a
liar for no particular good reason!"
"Do you object to that?" said Bunny.
Saltash made a careless gesture. "Perhaps---as you say--it isn't worth
it. All the same, I've a certain right to know what you propose to do,
since, I gather, I have not managed to satisfy you."
"A right!" flashed Bunny.
"Yes, a right." Saltash's voice was suddenly and suavely confident. "You
may forget--or possibly you may remember--that I gave my protection to
Nonette on the day she came to me for it, and I have never withdrawn
it since. What matters to her--matters to me."
"I see." Bunny stood stiffly facing him. "I am responsible to you, am I?"
"That is what I am trying to convey," said Saltash.
The fire in Bunny's eyes leapt high for a moment or two, then died down
again. Had Jake been his opponent, he would have flung an open challenge,
but somehow Saltash, with whom he had never before striven in his life,
was less easy to resist. In some subtle fashion he seemed able to evade
resistance and yet to gain his point.
He gained his point on this occasion. Almost before he knew it, Bunny had
yielded.
"I am going to her," he said, "to ask her for the whole truth--about her
past."
"Is any woman capable of telling the truth to that extent?" questioned
Saltash.
"I shall know if she doesn't," said Bunny doggedly.
"And will that help?" The note of mockery that was never long absent from
his voice sounded again. "Isn't it possible--sometime--to try to know too
much? There is such a thing as looking too closely, _mon ami_. And then
we pay the price."
"Do you imagine I could ever be satisfied not knowing?" said Bunny.
Saltash shrugged his shoulders. "I merely suggested that you are going
the wrong way to satisfy yourself. But that is your affair, not mine. The
gods have sent you a gift, and because you don't know what it is made
of, you are going to pull it to pieces to find out. And presently you
will fling it away because you cannot fit it together again. You don't
realize--you never will realize--that the best things in life are the
things we never see and only dimly understand."
A vein of sincerity mingled with the banter in his voice, and Bunny was
aware of a curious quality of reverence, of something sacred in a waste
place.
It affected him oddly. Convinced though he was that in one point at least
Saltash had sought to deceive him it yet influenced him very strongly in
Saltash's favour. Against his judgment, against his will even, he saw him
as a friend.
"Do you mean to tell me," he said, speaking slowly, his eyes upon the
swarthy, baffling countenance, "that you have never even tried to know
where she came from--what she is?"
Saltash made a quick gesture as of remonstrance. "_Mon ami_, the last I
have always known. The first I have never needed to know."
"Then," Bunny spoke with difficulty, but his look never wavered, "tell
me--as before God--tell me what you believe her to be!"
"What I know her to be," corrected Saltash, "I will tell you--certainly.
She is a child who has looked into hell, but she is still--a child."
"What do you mean?" questioned Bunny.
Saltash's eyes, one black, one grey, suddenly flashed a direct challenge
into his own. "I mean," he said, "that the flame has scorched her, but it
has never actually touched her."
"You know that?" Bunny's voice was hoarse. There was torture in his eyes.
"Man--for God's sake--the truth!"
"It is the truth," Saltash said.
"How do you know it? You've no proof. How can you be sure?" He could not
help the anguish of his voice. The words fell harsh and strained.
"How do I know it?" Saltash echoed the words sharply. "What proof? Bunny,
you fool, do you know so little of the world--of women--as that? What
proof do you need? Just--look into her eyes!"
A queer note of passion sounded in his own voice, and it told Bunny very
clearly that he was grappling with the naked truth at last. It arrested
him in a moment. He suddenly found that he could go no further. There
was no need.
Impulsively, with an inarticulate word of apology, he thrust out his
hand. Saltash's came to meet it in a swift, hard grip.
"Enough?" he asked, with that odd, smiling grimace of his that revealed
so little.
And, "Yes, enough!" Bunny said, looking him straight in the face.
They parted almost without words a few minutes later. There was no more
to be said.