"No--no!" said Saltash, and gently relinquished his hold. "Don't forget that you are a favourite of the gods! That counts for something, my Toby. They don't take up with everybody." "They haven't done much for me so far," said Toby, suddenly rebellious. "Hush!" said Saltash, with semi-comic warning. "You are too young to say that." "I am--older than you think, sir," said Toby, colouring painfully and turning from his look. "No, you're not!" Swiftly, with a certain arrogance, Saltash made answer. "I know--how old you are, child. It is written in your eyes. They have always told me--all I need to know." Then, very tenderly, as Toby's hands covered them from his look: "_Mais, Mignonette_, they have never told me anything that you could wish me not to know." He slipped his arm again about the slender shoulders and pressed them closely for a moment. Then he stood up and turned to go. He was smiling as he passed out--the smile of the gambler who knows that he holds a winning card. PART II CHAPTER I JAKE BOLTON It was a week after the sinking of _The Night Moth_ that Saltash, very immaculately dressed, with field-glasses slung over his shoulder, made his first appearance since the disaster at a meeting on the Graydown Race-course, a few miles from his ancient castle of Burchester. He was looking very well pleased with himself and certainly none the worse for the adventure as he sauntered among his friends, of whom a good many were present. His ugly face and wiry figure were well-known at Graydown, and he seemed sure of his welcome wherever he went. There had been a time years before when he had kept his own stud, and racing had been his hobby. It had not held him for long. He was not the man to pursue any one object for any length of time. With characteristic volatility he had thrown up this amusement to follow others, but he had never wholly abandoned his interest in the stud which had once been his.