Saltash’s laugh stung, though it was exactly what she had expected.  But he qualified it the next moment with careless generosity.

“Quite a presentable cavalier, ma Juliette!  And a fixed occupation is something of an advantage at times, n’est-ce-pas?—­Je t’aime, tu l’aime!  And how soon do you ride away?  Or is that question premature?”

Juliet’s face burned in the dimness, but she was in front of him and thankfully aware that he could not see it.  “I am not answering any more questions, Charles,” she said.  “Now that you have got me into your ogre’s castle, you must be—­kind.”

“I will be kindness itself,” he assured her.  “You know I am the soul of hospitality.  All I have is yours.”

The narrow stair ended at a small stone landing on which was a door.  Juliet stepped aside as she reached it, and waited for her host.  “It’s rather like a prison,” she said.

“You won’t think so when you get through that door,” he said.  “By Jove!  To think that I’ve actually got you—­you of all people!—­here in my stronghold!  Do you realize that without my permission you can’t possibly get out again?”

Juliet’s laugh was absolutely spontaneous.  She faced him in that narrow space with the poise and confidence of a queen.  The light from a window that pierced the wall above shone down upon her.  In that moment she was endowed with an extraordinary beauty that was more of being, of personality, than of feature.

“It is exactly this that I have played for, Charles Rex,” she said.  “You hold all the cards, mon ami.  But—­the game is mine.”

“How so?” He was looking at her curiously, a dancing demon in his eyes.

She put out her hand to him, and as he took it, sank to the stone floor in a superb curtsy.  “Because I claim your gracious protection, my lord the king.  I ask your royal favour.”

He lifted her hand to his lips as she rose.  “You are—­as ever—­quite irresistible, ma Juliette,” he smiled.  “But—­do you really contemplate marrying this fortunate young man?  Because there are limits—­even to my generosity.  I am not sure that I can permit that.”

Her eyes looked straight into his.  “You can do—­anything you choose to do, Charles Rex,” she said; “except one thing.”

He made a grimace at her.  “I am king in my own castle anyway,” he observed, watching her.  “And you are at my mercy.”

“It is your mercy that I am waiting for,” she said, a faint smile at the corners of her lips.

“Ah!” he said, stood a moment longer, contemplating her, then turned abruptly and flung open the door against which he stood.

It led into a winding passage of such a totally different character from the stone staircase they had just mounted that Juliet stood gazing down it for some seconds before she obeyed his mute gesture to pass through.  It was thickly carpeted, deadening all sound, and the walls were hung with some heavy material, in the colour of old oak.  It was lighted by three long perpendicular slits of windows, let into a twelve-foot thickness of wall.  Juliet had a glimpse of many pine trees as she passed them.