Saltash's brows twisted wryly. "Afraid I've lived too long, mon cher. If I had married your sister in the long ago, things might have been vastly different. As it is, I see no prospect of changing my state. Think it matters?"
"Well, it's rather a shame to let a good name die out," maintained Bunny. "And of course it's rot to talk like that about Maud. You can't pretend to have stayed in love with her all these years. There must have been heaps of others since then."
"No, I'm not pretending," said Saltash. "As you say, there have been—heaps of others." He made an odd gesture towards the western sky behind him. "There are always—heaps of stars, Bunny; but there's never more than one moon."
"Rot!" said Bunny.
"It is, isn't it?" said Saltash, and laughed with brief derision. "Well,
I must get on. You can do the receiving if I'm late. Tell them I've been
in town and only got back at mid-day! You needn't bother about Larpent.
I'll see to him."
He flicked his horse's neck and was off with the words.
Bunny, striding after, watched him ride swiftly up the slope till the fir-trees of the avenue hid him from view.
"Queer fish!" he murmured to himself. "Very queer fish!"
He entered the Castle a little later by the great stone hall and found it lighted from end to end as if in preparation for a reception. He had known the place for years, but it always struck him afresh with its magnificence. It looked like a palace of kings. There were some beautiful pieces of statuary both in marble and bronze, and upon each of these a shaded light shone.
At the end of the hall a wide oak staircase that branched mid-way led to an oak gallery that ran round three sides of the hall, and where it divided a high door stood open, showing a lighted room beyond. Bunny left his coat with the silent-stepping butler and went straight up the shallow stairs.