"There! Sit down!" he said, after a meanest. "Leave the child alone for a bit! I'll go up to him myself before long."
Casual as was his voice, the force of his personality reached and dominated her. It was certainly not of her own volition that she obeyed.
She sat down again in the low chair before the hearth. "I know he will have a bad night," she said uneasily.
"It won't be any the worse for this," said Jake, with confidence. "And, now, look here, my girl, I want to ask you something--just in a friendly way."
Maud's hands clasped each other hard. There was no repose in her attitude. "What is it?" she asked, in that aloof voice of hers that emanated from intense shyness rather than pride.
Jake was smoking steadily. The heavy odour of his tobacco filled the room. "I don't want to give any offence," he said. "But it seems to me that Lord Saltash is on a footing of intimacy with you and Bunny that rather points to your not knowing the sort of person he really is."
Maud's eyes grew suddenly darker. She looked him full in the face. "I know him too well to discuss him with any--outsider," she said.
"That so?" said Jake, slightly drawling. "Well, that certainly makes matters rather more complicated. I know him, too--awfully well,--so well that I shall have to request you to keep the young man at a respectful distance; for he certainly won't stay there if you don't."
Maud sat tensely still. Several moments of utter silence passed away. Then, almost under her breath, she spoke. "Are you absurd enough to be jealous?"
Jake's eyes watched her unwaveringly through the smoke. "Would it be very absurd of me?" he asked gravely.