The Italian looked murderous for a moment, but he gave ground almost in spite of himself. Perhaps the calm insistence of the other man's bearing warned him at the outset of the futility of attempting any other course of action; Jake was actually in the carriage before he could jerk out a word of protest.
"Sapristi! You go too far!" he blustered then. But Jake was already confronting the girl who had started up at his coming, and stood facing him white and shaken. He spoke, still quite quietly, even gently, but in the tone that no delinquent ever heard unmoved.
"Say," he said, "are you playing the game?"
She put up a hand to her throat. His sudden coming had unnerved her, and she had no words. But her quivering face and tragic eyes were more than sufficient answer for Jake. He had dealt with sudden emergencies before, and he treated this one with characteristic decision.
"You've no business here," he said, "and you know it. If you can't stick to the man you've married, come home with me to Maud!"
She made a sharp gesture toward him, as if on the verge of falling, and as sharply recovered herself. "Oh, I wish—how I wish I could!" she breathed.
Jake's hand, perfectly steady, full of sustaining strength, closed with authority upon her arm. "That's settled then," he said. "Come now!"
But at this point the Italian burst furiously in upon them with a flood of unintelligible language that made all further speech impossible.
Jake glanced momentarily over his shoulder as if disturbed by the buzzing of some insect, then with unruffled composure turned back to the girl. His eyes looked straight into hers for perhaps ten seconds, then in the same purposeful fashion he set her free and deliberately turned upon the man who raged behind him.
As he did so, there came a shouting and banging of doors along the platform, and the train began to move. Jake's massive shoulders braced themselves. Without words he seized the raving Italian in a grip there was no resisting, swept him, as a sudden gale sweeps a leaf, across the compartment, sent him with a neat twist buzzing forth upon the platform, and very calmly shut the door and came back.