"You knew?" flung in Bunny.
Saltash's grin flashed across his dark features like a meteor through a cloudy sky and was gone. "I—suspected, mon ami. But—I did not even tell myself." That part of him that was French—a species of volatile sentimentality—sounded in the words like the echo of a laugh in a minor key. "I made a valet of her. I suffered her to clean my boots and brush my clothes. I kept her in order—with this—upon occasion."
He held up the switch he carried.
"I don't believe it," said Bunny bluntly.
Saltash's shoulders went up. "You please yourself, mon cher. I am telling you the truth. I treated her like a puppy. I was kind to her, but never extravagantly kind. But I decided—eventually I decided—that it was time to turn home. No game can last forever. So we returned, and on our last night at sea we were rammed and sunk. Naturally that spoilt—or shall I say somewhat precipitated?—my plans. We were saved, the two of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, mon ami, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it if you had, I'll wager."
He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's. He moved heavily, staring straight before him, his face drawn in hard lines of misery.
"Well," Saltash said, "that's all I have done. You now know the truth, simple and unadorned, as Sheila Melrose in her simplicity does not know it and probably would not comprehend it if she did."
"Leave her out of it!" said Bunny, in a strangled voice. "It was—the obvious conclusion."
"Oh, the obvious!" Cynicism undisguised caught up the word. "Only the young and innocent can ever really say with any conviction what is the obvious way of blackguards. You don't know it—neither do I. A single decent impulse on the part of a blackguard can upset all the calculations of the virtuous. Oh, Bunny, you fool, what do you want to wreck things for at this stage? Can't you see you've got a gift from the gods? Take it, man, and be thankful that you're considered worthy of it!"
Bunny made a sharp movement of protest. Saltash was looking at him with half-humorous compassion as one looks at a child with a damaged toy, and he was keenly conscious of being at a disadvantage. But though checked, he was not defeated. Saltash had made out a case for himself. He had in a measure vindicated Toby. But that was not the end of the matter.