“Ah!” Saltash’s teeth showed for an instant.  “I also am grateful to Jake for that.  He seems to have taken a masterly grip of the situation.  Is he aware that he broke Spentoli’s arm, I wonder?  It was in the papers, alongside the tragic death of Rozelle.  ’Fall of a Famous Sculptor from a Train.’  It will keep him quiet for some time, I hear, and has saved me the trouble of calling him out.  I went to see him in hospital.”

“You went to see him!” Maud exclaimed.

Saltash nodded, the derisive light still in his eyes.  “And conveyed my own condolences.  You may tell la petite from me that I do not propose to set her free on his account.  He is not what I should describe as a good and sufficient cause.”

“Thank heaven for that!” Maud ejaculated with relief.

“Amen!” said Saltash piously, and took out his cigarette-case.

She watched him with puzzled eyes till the cigarette was alight and he smiled at her through the smoke, his swarthy face full of mocking humour.

“Now tell me!” she said then, “how can I help you?”

He made a wide gesture.  “I leave that entirely to your discretion, madam.  As you may perceive, I have wholly ceased to attempt to help myself.”

“You are not angry with her?” she hazarded.

“I am furious,” said Charles Rex royally.

She shook her head at him.  “You’re not in earnest—­and it wouldn’t help you if you were.  Besides, you couldn’t be angry with the poor little thing.  Charlie, you love her, don’t you?  You—­you want her back?”

He shifted his position slightly so that the smoke of his cigarette did not float in her direction.  His smile had a whimsical twist.  “Do I want her back?” he said.  “On my oath, it’s hard to tell.”

“Oh, surely!” Maud said.  She rose impulsively and stood beside him.  “Charlie,” she said, “why do you wear a mask with me?  Do you think I don’t know that she is all the world to you?”

He looked at her, and the twisted smile went from his face.  “There is no woman on this earth that I can’t do without,” he said.  “I learnt that—­when I lost you.”

“Ah!” Maud’s voice was very pitiful.  Her hand came to his.  “But this—­this is different.  Why should you do without her?  You know she loves you?”

His fingers closed spring-like about her own.  A certain hardness was in his look.  “If she loves me,” he said, “she can come back to me of her own accord.”

“But if she is afraid?” Maud pleaded.

“She has no reason to be,” he said.  “I have claimed nothing from her.  I have never spoken a harsh word to her.  Why is she afraid?”

“Have you understood her?” Maud asked very gently.

He made an abrupt movement as though the question, notwithstanding the absolute kindness of its utterance, had somehow an edge for him.  The next moment he began to laugh.

“Why ask these impossible riddles?  Has any man ever understood a woman?  Let us dismiss the subject!  And since you are here, ma belle reine,—­you of all people—­let us celebrate the occasion with a drink!—­even if it be only tea!”