This piece of diplomacy obviously came to Jake as an inspiration. His smile broadened at the brightening of her face.
Maud raised herself on her elbow and pushed the thick hair back from her forehead. "You are very good," she said gratefully. "Please, will you go now, and let me get up?"
He turned at once to the door, but paused as he reached it. "Say, Maud," he said tentatively; "there's a breakfast-tray waiting for you. May I bring it up?"
"Oh, please don't!" she said hurriedly. "I never breakfast in bed. Besides----"
"I'll put it outside the door then," said Jake, and was gone.
She heard him clatter down the uncarpeted stairs, whistling as if well-pleased with himself, and as she reviewed his unceremonious behaviour she decided to treat it with the simplicity with which he evidently regarded it himself. There was that advantage in the situation at least. His character and his conduct were wholly without subtleties--or so she imagined. When he dumped down the breakfast-tray in the passage a little later she called her thanks to him through the closed door as though he had been an old and intimate friend. Perhaps after all she had been over-fanciful the night before!
She ate her breakfast with a growing sense of reassurance, dressed, and went downstairs.
Something of an ordeal here awaited her in the form of an encounter with Mrs. Lovelace, who greeted her deferentially but with a reticence that certainly did not veil any good-will. She presented her with the household keys with the stiff remark that Mr. Bolton had desired her to do so.
Maud received them with an odd dismay. Somehow she had not visualized herself as the mistress of the establishment.
"Mr. Bolton also wished me to take your orders for dinner, ma'am," said Mrs. Lovelace, with stiff dignity. "He is accustomed to dine in the middle of the day, but I was to tell you that if you preferred a late dinner it was all one to him."