He looked her squarely in the eyes. "The only game worth playing," he
said. "The straight game."
"Oh, I see," said Toby with much meekness. "Not cheat, you mean? Lord
Saltash doesn't allow cheating either."
"Good land!" said Jake in open astonishment.
"You don't know him," said Toby again with conviction.
And Jake laughed, good-humoured but sceptical. "Maybe I've something to
learn yet," he said tolerantly. "But it's my impression that for sheer
mischief and double-dealing he could knock spots off any other human
being on this earth."
"Oh, if that's all you know about him," said Toby, "you've never even met
him--never once."
"Have you?" questioned Jake abruptly.
She coloured up to the soft fair hair that clustered about her
blue-veined temples, and turned from him with an odd little indrawn
breath. "Yes!" she said. "Yes!"--paused an instant as if about to say
more; then again in a whisper, "Yes!" she said, and went lightly away as
if the subject were too sacred for further discussion.
"Good land!" said Jake again, and departed to his own room in grim
amazement.
Saltash the sinner was well known to him and by no means uncongenial; but
Saltash the saint, not only beloved, but reverenced and enshrined as
such, as something beyond his comprehension! How on earth had he managed
to achieve his sainthood?
CHAPTER IX
THE IDOL
"Well?" said Saltash with quizzical interest.
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