COUNSEL
Juliet and Columbus sat in a sheltered nook on the shore and gazed
thoughtfully out to sea. It was a warm morning after a night of tempest,
and the beach was strewn with seaweed after an unusually high tide.
Columbus sat with a puckered brow. In his heart he wanted to be pottering
about among these ocean treasures which had a peculiar fascination for
his doggy soul. But a greater call was upon him, keeping him where he
was. Though she had not uttered one word to detain him, he had a strong
conviction that his mistress wanted him, and so, stolidly, he remained
beside her, his sharp little eyes flashing to and fro, sometimes watching
the great waves riding in, sometimes following the curving flight of a
sea-gull, sometimes fixed in immensely dignified contemplation upon the
quivering tip of his nose. His nostrils worked perpetually. The air was
teeming with interesting scents; but not one of them could lure him from
his mistress's side while he sensed her need of him. His body might be
fat and bulging, but his spirit was a thing of keen perceptions and
ardent, burning devotion, capable of denying every impulse save the love
that was its mainspring.
Juliet was certainly very thoughtful that day. She also was watching the
waves, but the wide brow was slightly drawn and the grey eyes were not
so serene as usual. She had the look of one wrestling with a difficult
problem. The roar of the sea was all about her, blotting out every other
sound, even the calling of the gulls. Her arm encircled Columbus who was
pressed solicitously close to her side. They had been sitting so, almost
without moving, for over half-an-hour.
Suddenly Columbus turned his head sharply, and a growl swelled through
him. Juliet looked round, and in a moment she had started to her feet. A
man's figure, lithe and spare, with something of a monkey's agility of
movement, was coming to her over the stones. They met in a shelving
hollow of shingle that had been washed by the sea.
"Oh, Charles!" she said impulsively. "It is good of you to come!"
He glanced around him as he clasped her hand, his ugly face brimming 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 Dick?"
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 rectitude!" 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 Dick 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 fashion 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
shiver 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 fashion."
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 embarrassment. "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 assured 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.