“I’ll tell you what it is, Nonette.  You’re getting spoilt all round.  Something will have to be done.  Shall I take her away, Jake?”

“And bring me back when I’m good?” put in Toby eagerly.

He laughed and pinched her ear.  “I shall want to keep you myself—­when you’re good.  I haven’t yet found anyone to sew on buttons like you do.  No, ma chere, you’ll have to stay and be caned for your sins.  Jake is a better schoolmaster than I am, being so eminently virtuous himself.  I hope you do cane her, Jake.  I’m sure she needs it.”

“No,” Jake said, preparing to mount again.  “I haven’t tried that at present.”

Toby watched him a little wistfully as he moved away, leading her horse.  “I am trying to be good,” she said.  “He knows that.”

“Yes, she’s trying hard,” Maud said very kindly.  “Jake and I are going to be proud of her some day.”

Saltash’s brows twisted humorously.  “I wonder,” he said.  And then again lightly he laughed.  “Don’t get too good, Nonette!  I can’t rise to it.”

She turned swiftly, looking up into the derisive face above her with open adoration in her own.  “You!” she said.  “You!”

“Well, what about me?” he said.

She coloured very deeply.  “Nothing, sir, nothing!  Only—­you’re so great!”

He flicked her cheek, grimacing hideously.  “Is that your pretty way of telling me I’m the biggest rotter you ever met?”

“Oh, no!” said Toby quickly and earnestly.  “Oh no!  I think you are—­a king.  If—­if anyone could make me believe in God, you could.”

She spoke with a sincerity that held a hint of passion.  The grimace flicked out of Saltash’s face like a picture from a screen.  For a moment he had the blank look of a man who has been hit, he knows not where.  Then with lightning swiftness, his eyes went to Maud.  “You hear that?” he said, almost on a note of challenge.  “Why don’t you laugh?”

She met his look with absolute steadfastness.  There was a certain pity in her own.  “Because,” she said with great gentleness, “I believe that it is true.”

In the silence that followed she waited for his own laugh of mockery and did not hear it.  The odd eyes comprehended her, and passed her by, fell abruptly to Toby and dwelt upon her with a whimsical tenderness.

“I always said you were a little ass, didn’t I, Toby?” he said.

And Toby turned with an apologetic murmur and softly kissed his hand.

CHAPTER X

RESOLUTIONS

Toby went to church that Sunday evening with great propriety, Saltash having departed, taking Bunny with him to spend the evening at Burchester.  Her behaviour was a model of decorum throughout, but returning she begged Jake for a cigarette as a reward of virtue.

“It’ll keep me good for hours,” she assured him.

And Jake, who yearned for a smoke himself, could not find it in his heart to refuse.