He bent lower, put his hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet.  She came up from the couch with a spring, and stood before him, half-daring and half-shy.

Saltash kept his hold upon her arm, and turned her towards the wall beside the tall mantel-piece.  She went with him readily enough, watching, eager-eyed, as he stretched his free hand up to the oak panelling.

“Now I’m going to find out all your secrets!” she said boyishly.

“Not quite all,” said Saltash.

There came the click of a spring and the panel slid to one side, leaving a long, narrow opening before them.  Toby glanced up at him and, with a small, nestling movement, slipped within the circle of his arm.  It tightened upon her in an instant, and she laughed again, a quivering, exultant laugh.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” she said.

They paused on the edge of darkness, but there was no hesitation about Toby.  She was all athrill with expectancy.  Then in a flash the room before them was illuminated, and they entered.

It was a strange chamber, panelled, built in the shape of a cone.  A glass dome formed its roof, and there was no window besides.  The lights were cunningly concealed behind a weirdly coloured fresco of Oriental figures.  But one lamp alone on a small table burned with a still red glow.  This lamp was supported on the stuffed skin of a hooded cobra.

Toby’s eyes were instantly drawn towards it.  They shone with excitement.  Again she glanced up at the man beside her.

“What a wonderful place!”

“Better than the music-room?” suggested Saltash.

“Oh, yes, far better.”  Her shining eyes sought his.  “It might be your cabin on the yacht.”

He stretched a hand behind him and again the spring clicked.  Then he drew her forward.  They trod on tiger skins.  Everywhere were tiger skins, on the floor and on a deep low settee by the table which was the only other furniture the room possessed.  Toby was clinging to the arm that held her, clinging very closely.  There was unspoken entreaty in her hold.  For there was something about Saltash at the moment, something unfamiliar and unfathomable that frightened her.  His careless drollery, his two-edged ironies, were nought to her; but his silence was a barrier unknown that she could not pass.  She could only cling voicelessly to the support he had not denied her.

He brought her to the settee and stood still.  His face was strangely grim.

“Well—­Toby?” he said.

She twisted in his hold and faced him, but she kept his arm wound close about her, her hand tight gripped on his.  “Are you—­angry with me for coming?” she asked him quiveringly.  “I—­had to come.”

He looked down into her eyes. “Bien, petite! Then you need—­a friend,” he said.

Her answering look was piteous.  “I need—­you,” she said.

One of the old gay smiles flashed across his face.  He seemed to challenge her to lightness.  The grimness went out of his eyes like a shadow.