"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.
"Utterly." She spoke the one word with a free disdain.
He bent his head slightly. "Since you say so--it goes. At the same time, it might be well for you to remember that Lord Saltash invariably hunts for himself. He is not a man that any woman can safely trust. He has his points, maybe, but--he is not sound."
Very steadily he delivered his verdict, and Maud received it in unbroken silence. More or less she knew it to be true, and yet very bitterly did she resent its utterance. It was as if he had exposed to her the worthlessness of a possession which for old sake’s sake she treasured though conscious that in itself it was without value. For she had never idealized Charlie Burchester. Even in the old days of close intimacy she had always seen the feet of clay, though in her fond woman’s way she had sought to overlook them. It was intolerable to have them pointed out to her by one whom she still curiously regarded as a comparative stranger.
She had nothing to say on her friend’s behalf. Reason warned her that it would be useless to attempt to take up the cudgels in his defence. And so she sat in silence, inwardly burning, outwardly calm.
Jake smoked on for several minutes, then quietly rose. "I’ll go up and settle the youngster now," he said. "And you have made up your mind on the other subject? I am to write to Capper?"
She did not answer for a moment; her eyes were fixed upon the fire.
He paused beside her, and again there came to her that sense of warmth, of bodily force, that seemed to reach her from the very centre of the man’s being, rushing out to her, enveloping her.
She made a slight, involuntary movement of withdrawal. "I have said so," she said.