Mr. Warren gave him a brief nod. Maud still stood mute, Jake's note with the piece of string dangling therefrom in her hand.
He went quietly to her. "Say! Let me fix that for you!" he said.
She suffered him to take her hand. It lay cold and quivering in his. He wound the string round her third finger and knotted it. Then he slipped it off, and took the hand closely and warmly into his own.
"I hope you haven't come to forbid the banns," he said, calmly returning the grim scrutiny that the old man had levelled at him from the moment of his entrance.
Uncle Edward uttered a sound indicative of intense disgust. "I? Oh, I've no authority," he said. "I disapprove--if that's what you mean. Any decent person would disapprove of the sort of alliance you two are determined to make. But I don't expect my opinion to be deferred to. If you choose to marry a woman who doesn't care two straws about you, it's your affair, not mine."
Jake turned in his deliberate fashion to Maud. "Your uncle, I presume?" he said.
"Yes," she made answer.
His face wore a smile that baffled her, as he said: "It's my opinion that we should get on better alone together, though it's for you to decide."
She looked at him rather piteously, and as if in answer to that look Jake slipped a steady arm about her.
"What about the head of the family?" he said, speaking softly almost as if to a child. "Reckon he'll be wanting you. Won't you go to him?"