"What! Nervous?" laughed Saltash.
"I have a wife to think of," was Jake's unmoved reply.
"Oh, to be sure!" A hint of mockery ran through the words. "What an artful fox you were to go and get married on the sly like that! If I'd known, I'd have come to the wedding."
"It wasn't much of an affair," said Jake. "And it had to take place at short notice, or I should have told you about it."
"Perhaps it wouldn't have taken place at all if you had," laughed Lord Saltash. "You know the legend of Young Lochinvar. And--" his dark face screwed up into a comic grimace--"I presume you know my reputation."
"Almost as well as I know you, my lord," said Jake drily.
Saltash sent him a sharp glance through the gathering twilight. He was driving swiftly but well. "Nobody ever really knows anybody in this world of noughts and crosses," he observed lightly after a moment. "It's a queer place, Bolton. And it isn't always the fellows that gather the fruit that enjoy the eating thereof. Ever reflected on that truism?"
"I reckon it couldn't apply to me in any case," drawled Jake, turning up his collar and settling into it with square deliberation.
"Because you're one of the favoured few?" questioned Saltash.
There was an unmistakably jeering note in his voice this time. A faint smile came into Jake's face. His eyes stared straight before him.