"It is my mother I am anxious about," she said. "If Giles Sheppard goes under, she will go too."
Saltash raised his brows in amused interrogation. "Oh, does that follow? I should abandon the sinking ship if I were Mrs. Sheppard. She has nothing to gain by sticking to it."
Maud received the remark in silence. He leaned forward, his dark face still smiling.
"Do you know I love you for that?" he said. "Chère reine des fleurs, lady of the golden silences! Do you ever say what you really think?"
She shook her head. "Charlie, I am learning--very slowly--a hard lesson. Don't--please--make it any harder for me!"
"What?" he said. "You are really going back to him?"
She put up a hand to her face, almost as if she would hide it from him. "I don't know--yet--what I shall do. But I do know that it would be wrong not to go back."
"Mais vraiment!" he protested. "Is life so simple as that? How do you arrive at that conclusion? Do you follow always the easy path of virtue?"
She looked at him quickly. "It is not easy!" she said.
He lifted his shoulders. "No? But it is--safe at least. And you do not possess the adventurous soul. You like to be--safe, ma belle, even at the sacrifice of your very heart. Do you remember that night of moonshine? But of course you do. Do you know that I prowled in the garden half the night for your sake--just in case you should deem it worth while to be true to that poor heart of yours? You went through a good deal that night, my Maud." His voice changed subtly; the half-scoffing note went out of it, a faint warmth of pity took its place. "And yet you endured it all in silence. Why didn't you break free and come to me? You knew--and so did he--that I was waiting,--or you might have known."