She endured his action with the most complete show of indifference, neither returning nor avoiding his caress. A faint, faint tinge of colour showed in her cheeks as with scarcely a pause she passed on into the room; that was all.
"It is getting late," she observed. "I think you had better go."
Jake’s eyes, red-brown and shining, followed her with a masterful expression as she moved to the table and laid down her flowers, marking the queenly bend of her neck, the cold majesty of her pose.
He said nothing for the moment, merely took his pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it.
Maud went to the sideboard for a vase. Her movements were very measured, very stately. She did not so much as glance towards the man who watched her. The old quick nervousness of manner had gone utterly from her. She was like a marble statue endued with a certain icy animation.
"You don’t look exactly--excited," remarked Jake, as he finally stuck his pipe into his mouth.
She smiled, a cold, aloof smile, saying nothing.
He lighted his pipe, his eyes still upon her. "Say, Maud," he said, between the puffs, "why don’t you come too?"
She raised her beautiful brows a little at the question and slightly shrugged her shoulders.
Her blue eyes met his for a single instant. They were dark and remote as a deep mountain tarn. "Not in the least," she said.
He swung round with a jingle of spurs and came to the table by which she stood.
The faint, cold smile still drew her lips. She had begun already to arrange her flowers.
He leaned towards her, laying an abrupt hand upon hers. "Maud!" he said.
She became still on the instant, but she did not look at him or attempt to avoid the tobacco smoke that curled between them.
"Maud," he said again, and there was a hint of pleading in his voice, "why can’t you be friends with me? Surely I’m not all that hard to get on with!"
She kept her eyes lowered. The pale composure of her face did not vary as she made reply. "I am sorry if you are not satisfied. I thought you had got--all you wanted."
He pulled the pipe from his mouth and laid it on the table. "Do you think any man is satisfied with husks?" he said.
Her lip curled a little. She said nothing.
He took her by the arms, not violently but with firmness. "Maud," he said, and there was urgency in his voice, "where’s the use of behaving like this? Do you think it’s going to make life easier, happier? Is it doing God’s work in the world to be always fighting the inevitable? I’m rough, I know; but I’m white. Why can’t you take me as I am, and make the best of me?"