He came sauntering up the passage with the royal assurance characteristic of him, and held out his hand to Dick with malicious cordiality.

“I come as a friend, Romeo.  Do you know you’re very late?  Have you only just got back?”

Juliet’s eyes were upon Dick.  She saw his momentary hesitation before he took the proffered hand.

Saltash saw it also and grinned appreciatively.  “Well, what news?  What did Yardley have to say?”

“I didn’t see him,” Dick said briefly.

“No?  How was that?”

Dick shrugged his shoulders.  “Merely because he wasn’t there.  I can’t tell you why, for I don’t know.  I waited about all day—­to no purpose.”

“Drew a blank!” commented Saltash.  “No wonder you’re feeling a bit savage!  What are you going to do now?”

Dick faced him, grimly uncommunicative.  “Oh, talk, I suppose.  What else?”

“And you’re taking Juliet?” pursued Saltash.

“Have you any objection?” said Dick sharply.

“None,” said Saltash smoothly.  “She is your wife, not mine—­perhaps fortunately for her.”  He threw a gay glance at Juliet.  “Are you ready, ma chere?  Come along, mon ami!  It will amuse me to hear you—­talk.”

Juliet went upstairs to fetch her cloak, and Dick took his coat from the peg in the hall, and began to put it on.  Saltash watched him with careless amiability.

“Are you going to be there to-night then?” Dick asked him suddenly.

“I am proposing to give myself that pleasure,” he returned.  “That is, of course, if you on your part have no objection.”

Dick’s black eyes surveyed him keenly.  “I am quite capable of protecting my wife single-handed,” he said.  “Not that there will be any need.”

Saltash executed a smiling bow.  “I am delighted to hear you say so.  Have you got a cigarette to spare?”

Dick took out his case and held it to him.  Saltash helped himself, the smile still twitching the corners of his mouth.

“Thanks,” he said lightly.  “So you have no anxieties about to-night!”

“None,” said Dick.

“You think the men will come to heel?”

“They haven’t broken away yet,” Dick reminded him curtly.

Saltash raised his eyes suddenly.  “When they do—­what then?” he said.

“What do you mean?” said Dick.

He laughed mischievously.  “I suppose you know that you are credited with being at their head?”

Dick, in the act of striking a match, paused.  He looked at the other man with raised brows.  “At their head?” he questioned.  “What do you mean?”

Without the smallest change of countenance Saltash enlightened him.  “As strike-leader, agitator, and so on.  You have achieved an enviable reputation by your philanthropy.  Didn’t you know?”

Dick struck the match with an absolutely steady hand, and held it to his cigarette.  “I did not,” he said.