e knows play from earnest."

"Does she?" said Bunny. He paused a moment, as if trying to concentrate
his forces; then he turned to Saltash again. "I'm going back now. I can't
dine with you--though I've no desire to quarrel. But you see--you must
understand--that I can never--accept anything from you again. I'm
sorry--but I can't."

"What are you going to do?" said Saltash.

Bunny hesitated, his boyish face a white mask of misery.

Saltash reached out a second time and touched him lightly, almost
caressingly, with the point of his switch. "What's the matter with you,
Bunny?" he said. "Think I've lied to you?"

Bunny met his look. "I don't want to quarrel with you," he said. "It
isn't--somehow it isn't--worth it."

"Thanks!" said Saltash, and briefly laughed. "You place my friendship at
a pretty high figure then. Tell me what you're going to do!"

"What is it to you what I do?" A quick gleam shone for an instant in
Bunny's eyes, dispelling the look of stricken misery. "I'm not asking you
to help me."

"I've grasped that," said Saltash. "But even so, I may be able to lend a
hand. As you say, there is not much point in our quarrelling. There's
nothing to quarrel about that I can see--except that you've called me a
liar for no particular good reason!"

"Do you object to that?" said Bunny.

Saltash made a careless gesture. "Perhaps---as you say--it isn't worth
it. All the same, I've a certain right to know what you propose to do,
since, I gather, I have not managed to satisfy you."

"A right!" flashed Bunny.

"Yes, a right." Saltash's voice was suddenly and suavely confident. "You
may forget--or possibly you may remember--that I gave my protection to
Nonette on the day she came to me for it, and I have never withdrawn
it since. What matters to her--matters to me."

"I see." Bunny stood stiffly facing him. "I am responsible to you, am I?"

"That is what I am trying to convey," said Saltash.

The fire in Bunny's eyes leapt high for a moment or two, then died down
again. Had Jake been his opponent, he would have flung an open challenge,
but somehow Saltash, with whom he had never before striven in his life,
was less easy to resist. In some subtle fashion he seemed able to evade
resistance and yet to gain his point.

He gained his point on this occasion. Almost before he knew it, Bunny had
yielded.

"I am going to her," he said, "to ask her for the whole truth--about her
past."

"Is any woman capable of tel