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Updated: June 2, 2025
"Fire away, if it does you any good!" Larpent's eyes, very steady under their fair, bushy brows, were still unwaveringly upon him. "No, I don't presume to give you advice," he said. "But I'll tell you something which you may or may not know.
She's been at school in France, and Larpent was bringing her home in the yacht when we went down. She's nineteen a jolly little thing half French. Larpent doesn't know what to do with her. He has no people. She quite properly wants to earn her own living. But she's too young yet to fight the world. Larpent's a rover, he'll never settle on land. She's never had any home life, poor kid.
"It was your talk of charmers that did it. I was trying to think of all I had met." "All the Rozelles and the Tobies!" said Sheila, with a hard little laugh. He gripped her hand and released it. "I have never met more than one of each," he said. "Which may be the secret of their charm. Don't class them together in your mind for a moment! Larpent's daughter may be a born charmer.
Toby tilted her chin with a reckless gesture that was somehow belied by the weariness of her eyes. "That wasn't what you came to talk about then?" she suggested after a pause. "No." Larpent's voice had a curious, almost deprecating quality. "I came to bring you a message." "A message!" She started slightly, and in a moment the defiance went out of her attitude. She turned towards him.
There were two selves in Saltash and, in Larpent's opinion, one was as strong as the other. It was nearly an hour later that Saltash, prowling to and fro in the starlight, became suddenly aware of a figure, small and slight, with gleaming brass buttons, standing behind his vacant chair. He turned sharply to look at it, some inexplicable emotion twitching his dark face.
In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it if you had, I'll wager." He turned upon the boy who strode in silence by his side with a gleam of triumph in his eyes, but there was no answering gleam in Bunny's.
Larpent leaned back again, puffing forth a thick cloud of smoke. "Once," he said briefly. "Only once?" gibed Saltash. "Man alive! Why, I've had the disease scores of times, and you are half a generation older than I am!" "I know," Larpent's eyes dwelt unblinking upon the sparkling blue of the water beyond the rail. "You've had it so often that you take it lightly." Saltash laughed.
"Do you know, Miss Melrose, it's rather curious, but you remind me of Spentoli too in some ways? I don't know if you and Miss Larpent possess the same characteristics, but I imagine you might develop them, given the same conditions." Sheila stiffened at the words. "I am sure you are quite wrong," she said coldly. "Captain Larpent's daughter is quite obviously a child of impulse. I am not."
Saltash glanced at him. "Why?" "She isn't the woman for you." Larpent spoke with the absolute conviction of one who knows. "She has too many ideals. Now this sprat you caught at Valrosa has none." "Not so sure of that," said Saltash. "Well, no illusions anyway." There was a hint of compassion in Larpent's voice. "It wasn't because she trusted you that she put herself under your protection.
Larpent's eyes came definitely down to him, grimly contemptuous. "Do you also suppose that would be the same thing?" he said. Bunny flushed a little, but he accepted the rebuff with a good grace. "I don't know, sir. You see, I've never been the captain of a yacht." Larpent's hard visage relaxed a little. He resumed his contemplation of the distant pine-woods in silence.
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