"So you’ve gone and got married, have you?" he said, his eyebrows working with monkeyish rapidity. "How original of you! I won’t be banal enough to congratulate. It’s such a bore to have to reply to that sort of thing. Let me wish you a happy Christmas instead! _Ma belle reine des roses, je te salue_! You are more faultily faultless than ever!"
He made her a sweeping, cavalier’s bow, and lightly kissed her hand.
She laughed without effort. "How odd to meet you like this, Charlie! I thought you were still abroad."
She was not even aware of uttering his Christian name, so naturally did it rise to her lips. It seemed to her suddenly that the old cruel barrier had been removed. Since they could never again be lovers, they were free now to be friends.
Surely the same thought had struck him also, for his odd eyes smiled intimately, confidentially, into hers, ere he turned in his lightning fashion to Jake, standing solidly by her side.
"You knew we were old friends?" he questioned.
Jake’s eyes, red-brown, intent, watched the swarthy, mobile face without the smallest shade of expression. "Yes," he said, in his slow soft voice, "I knew."
Maud glanced at him quickly. How much did he know? Had Bunny ever confided in him upon the subject?
But his face, absolutely composed and normal, told her nothing. He accepted the hand that Lord Saltash extended, looking him full and straight in the face. And through her mind unbidden there ran the memory of that strange story of treachery that Jake had once told to her and Bunny. Looking at the dark, keen countenance of this man who had once been so much more to her than friend, she tried to visualize his double, and failed utterly. Surely there could be but one Charlie Burchester in all the world!
"What are you trying to see?" laughed Lord Saltash. "I carry neither my virtues nor my vices in my face, being long past the ingenuous age. Have we time to go round the Stables? Or is your Christmas turkey clamouring to be eaten?"
Maud shot a swift look at Jake who after a momentary pause said, "I can go round with you now if you wish, my lord."
Saltash made a quick grimace. "That’s very obliging of you, Bolton. But don’t let me interfere with your domestic arrangements! I can come over again later."