“You’d have made a point of coming to the wedding?” suggested Saltash.

Jake passed the suggestion by.  “I’d have known how to deal with it, anyway.  Now, it seems, it’s too late.”

Saltash took up the envelope from the table, and returned it to his pocket.  “I believe you’d have been better pleased if I hadn’t married her,” he observed.

Jake shook his head.  “I’d be better pleased—­maybe—­if I knew for certain what you did it for.”

“My good Jake.  I don’t go in for aims and motives,” protested Saltash.  “Call it a marriage of convenience if you feel that way!  It’s all the same to me.”

Jake’s brows contracted.  “I’d give a good deal not to call it that,” he said.

Saltash laughed.  “Call it what you like—­a whim—­a fancy—­the craze of the moment!  You needn’t waste any sentiment over it.  I’m sorry about Bunny, but, if he hadn’t been an ass, it wouldn’t have happened.  You can’t blame me for that anyhow.  You did the same thing yourself.”

“I!” The red-brown eyes suddenly shone.  “I don’t follow you,” said Jake deliberately.

“You married your wife to deliver her from—­a fate you deemed unsuitable.”  Saltash’s teeth showed for a moment in answer to the gleam in Jake’s eyes.  “You did it in an almighty hurry too.”

“But—­damn it—­she needed protection!” Jake said.  “And—­at least—­I loved her!”

Saltash bowed.  “Hence your motive was an entirely selfish one.  My wife—­au contraire—­is quite unhampered by a husband’s devotion.  I have never made love to her—­yet.  I have only—­protected her.”

He paused, and suddenly the old monkey-like look of mischief flashed back into his face.

“I lay claim to the higher virtue, Jake,” he said.  “Heaven alone knows how long it will last.  I’ve never scored over you before, but on this occasion—­” He stopped with a careless wave of the hand.

“Yes,” Jake said.  “On this occasion—­you’ve got me beat.  But—­I didn’t fight for my own sake, nor yet for the off chance of downing you, which I own would have given me considerable pleasure once.  It was for the child’s sake.”  An unwonted note of entreaty suddenly sounded in his voice.  “I don’t know what your game is, my lord; but she’s yours now—­to make—­or break.  For God’s sake—­be decent to her—­if you can!”

“If I can!” Saltash clapped a sudden hand upon Jake’s shoulder, but though the action was obviously a kindly one, it held restraint as well.  “Do you think I don’t know how to make a woman happy, Jake?  Think I haven’t studied the subject hard enough?  Think I’m a fool at the game?”

Jake looked him straight in the face.  “No.  I don’t think you a fool, my lord,” he said.  “But I reckon there’s one or two things that even you may have to learn.  You’ve never yet made any woman permanently happy.  There’s only one way of doing that.  Bunny would have done it—­and won out too.  But you—­I’m not so sure of you.”