He laughed at her with the old half-caressing ridicule.  “That shocks you?  But why—­if they love each other?  Haven’t I heard you preach the gospel of love as the greatest thing on earth?  Didn’t you once tell me that I had yet to learn the joy—­” his smile twisted again—­“the overwhelming joy—­of setting the happiness of another before one’s own?  This thing can be done quite simply and easily—­as I suggested to you long ago.  She has only to go away with him, and I do the rest.  A moral crime—­no more.  Yes, it is against your code of course.  But consider!  I only stand to lose that which I have never possessed.  For the first time in my life, I commit a crime in the name of—­love!”

He laughed over the word; yet even through the scoffing sound there came a ring of pain.  His face had a drawn look—­the wistfulness of the monkey that has seen its prize irrevocably snatched away.

Maud rose quickly.  There was something in his attitude or expression that she could not bear.  “Oh, you are wrong!  You are wrong!” she said.  “You have the power to make her love you.  And you love her.  Charlie, this thing has not been given you to throw away.  You can’t!  You can’t!”

He made a sharp gesture that checked her.  “My dear Maud,” he said, “there are a good many things I can’t do, and one of them is this.  I can’t hold any woman against her will—­no, not if she were my wife ten times over.  I wouldn’t have let her go to Spentoli.  But Bunny is a different matter.  I have Jake’s word for it that he will make her a better husband than I shall.  If Bunny wants to know all about her past—­her parentage—­he can come to me and I can satisfy him.  Tell him that!  But if he really loves her—­he won’t care a damn—­any more than I do.”

“Ah!” Maud said.

She stood a moment, looking at him, and in her eyes was that mother-look of a love that understands.  She held out her hand to him.

“Thank you for telling me, Charlie,” she said.  “Good-bye!”

He held her hand.  “What have I told you?” he asked abruptly.

She shook her head.  “Never mind now!  You have just made me understand, that’s all.  I will give your message to Bunny—­to them both.  Good-bye!”

He stooped in his free, gallant way to kiss her hand.  “After all,” he said, “I return to my old allegiance.  It was you, chere reine, who taught me how to love.”

She gently freed her hand and turned to go.  “No,” she said.  “I think it was God who taught you that.”

For the second time Charles Rex failed to utter the scoffing laugh she half-expected.  The odd eyes looked after her with a kind of melancholy irony.

“To what purpose?” he said.

CHAPTER XI

THE GIFT OF THE GODS