“Why not?  Afraid?” mocked Saltash.

Toby was silent.  His hand closed involuntarily upon the back of his master’s chair.  The flush died out of his face.

Saltash sat and looked at him for a few seconds, still with that dancing gleam in his eyes.  Then abruptly he moved, rose with one knee upon the chair, lifted the glass to Toby’s lips.

“Afraid?” he said again, speaking softly as one speaks to a frightened child.

Toby raised a hand that sought to take the glass but closed instead nervously upon Saltash’s wrist.  He drank in response to Saltash’s unspoken insistence, looking straight at him the while.

Then oddly he smiled.  “No, not afraid, sir,” he said.  “Only—­lest I might not bring you luck.”

“Oh, don’t fret yourself on that account!” said Saltash.  “I’m not used to any luck.”

Toby’s eyes widened.  “I thought you had—­everything, sir,” he said.

Saltash laughed and set down the empty glass. “Au contraire, mon cher,” he said.  “I am no richer than you are.  Like Tantalus, I can never quench my thirst.  Like many a better man than I, I see the stars, but I never reach them.”

“Does anybody?” said Toby in the tone of one not expecting an answer.

Saltash laughed briefly, enigmatically.  “I believe some people soar.  But they generally come down hard in the end.  Whereas those who always crawl on the earth haven’t far to fall.  Now look here, Toby, you and I have got to have a talk.”

“Yes, sir,” said Toby, blinking rather rapidly.

Saltash was watching him with a faint smile in his eyes, half-derisive and half-tender.  “What are you going to be, Toby?” he said.  “It all turns on that.”

Toby’s hand still gripped the back of his chair.  He stood up very straight, facing him.  “That is for you to decide, sir,” he said.

“Is it?” said Saltash, and again his eyes gleamed a little.  “Is it for me to decide?”

“Yes, sir.  For you alone.”  There was no flinching in Toby’s look now.  His eyes were wide and very steady.

Saltash’s mouth twitched as if he repressed some passing emotion.  “You mean—­just that?” he asked, after a moment.

“Just that, sir,” said Toby, with a slight quickening of the breath.  “I mean I am—­at your disposal alone.”

Saltash took him suddenly by the shoulder and looked at him closely.  “Toby!” he said.  “Aren’t you making—­rather a fool of yourself?”

“No, sir!” Swiftly, with unexpected vehemence, Toby made answer.  “I’m doing—­the only thing possible.  But if you—­if you—­if you—­”

“Well?” Saltash said.  “If I what?”

“If you want to get rid of me—­at any time,” Toby said, commanding himself with fierce effort, “I’ll go, sir—­I’ll go!”

“And where to?” Saltash’s eyes were no longer derisive; they held something that very few had ever seen there.

Toby made a quick gesture of the hands, and dropped them flat at his sides.  “I’ll get rid of myself—­then, sir,” he said, with sudden chill pride.  “That won’t be very difficult.  And I’ll do it—­so that you won’t even know.”