He stopped at the foot of the outside steps looking up at her. His eyes were extremely bright, and something within her shrank from their straight regard. It conveyed possession, dominance; almost it conveyed a menace.
"When you have found them, come and—tell me!" she said.
He lifted his hat to her with punctilious courtesy, and turned away. "I will," he said.
"That's a masterful sort of person," observed Saltash, as they mounted the dimly-lit turret stair. "What does he do for a living?"
Juliet hesitated, conscious of a strong repugnance to discuss her lover with this man from her old world whom, strangely, at that moment, she felt that she knew so infinitely better. But she could not withhold an answer to so ordinary a question. Moreover Saltash could be imperious when he chose, and she knew instinctively that it was not wise to cross him.
"By profession," she said slowly at length, "he is—a village schoolmaster."
Saltash's laugh stung, though it was exactly what she had expected. But he qualified it the next moment with careless generosity.
"Quite a presentable cavalier, ma Juliette! And a fixed occupation is something of an advantage at times, n'est-ce-pas?—Je t'aime, tu l'aime! And how soon do you ride away? Or is that question premature?"
Juliet's face burned in the dimness, but she was in front of him and thankfully aware that he could not see it. "I am not answering any more questions, Charles," she said. "Now that you have got me into your ogre's castle, you must be—kind."
"I will be kindness itself," he assured her. "You know I am the soul of hospitality. All I have is yours."