She followed him to the outer door. The evening air smote chill and salt upon her, and she shivered involuntarily. Jake stopped to light a cigarette.
"I shan't be coming round to-morrow," he remarked then. "I shall be too busy. But I'll look in on Saturday, and tell you what I've fixed up. Will Sunday morning do all right if I can fix it?"
She shivered again. "Yes," she said.
"Say, you're cold," said Jake gently. "I mustn't keep you standing here. But you really meant that Yes?"
He looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were kindly. She held out her hand with a desperate little smile.
"Yes, I meant it."
His hand closed strongly, sustainingly, upon hers. "Guess there's nothing to be scared of," he said. "I'll take care of you, sure."
She felt a sudden lump rise in her throat, and found she could not speak.
"You're tired," said Jake softly. "Go and get a good night! It's what you're wanting."
"Yes, I am tired," she managed to say.
He still held her hand, looking at her with those strange, glittering eyes of his that seemed to pierce straight through all reserve and enter even the hidden inner sanctuary of her soul.
"What's this relative of yours like now?" he asked unexpectedly.
She shook her head. "I don't know. I've never seen him."
"Think he's coming along to offer you a home?" asked Jake.
Her face burned suddenly and hotly. For some reason she resented the question. "I don't know. How can I possibly know?"
"All right," said Jake imperturbably. "But in case he does, I'd like you to know that you are at liberty to do as you please in the matter. He'll tell you, maybe, that I'm not the man for you. That, I gather, is your mother's attitude. I sensed it from the beginning. If he does, and if you feel inclined to agree with him, you're free to do so, – free as air. But at the same time, I'd like you to remember that if you should accept anything from him and then not find it to your liking, you can still come along to me and follow out the original programme. I'm only wanting to make you comfortable."
He stopped; and in the pause that followed, Maud's other hand came out to him, shyly yet impulsively. "You are-such a good fellow!" she said with a catch in her voice.
"Oh, bunkum!" said Jake, in a tone of almost indignant remonstrance.
He held her two hands, and turning, spat forth his cigarette into the night; an action of primitive simplicity that filled Maud with a grotesque kind of horrified mirth, mirth so intense that she had a sudden, hysterical desire to laugh. She restrained herself with a desperate effort.
"Good night!" she said, with something of urgency in her voice. "It isn't bunkum at all. It's the truth. You-I think you are the best friend I ever had. But-but-"
"But-" said Jake.
She freed her hands with a little gasp. "Nothing," she said. "Good night!"
It was a final dismissal, and as such he accepted it. She heard the steady fall of his feet as he went away, and with his going she managed to recover her composure.
There was an undeniable greatness about him that seemed to dwarf all criticism. She realized that to measure him by ordinary standards was out of the question, and as she reviewed all that he had done for her that day a gradual warmth began to glow in her. There was no other friend in all her world who would have extended to her so firm or so comforting a support in her hour of adversity. And if her face burned at the memory of her own utter collapse in his presence, she could but recall with gratitude and with confidence the steadfast kindness with which he had upheld her. She had gone to him in anguished despair, and he had offered her the utmost that he had to offer. As to his motives for so doing, she had a feeling that he had deliberately refrained from expressing them. He wanted her and he wanted Bunny. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps years of wandering had created in him a longing for home and domestic comfort.
But she did not speculate very deeply upon that subject. She felt that she could not. There was something in the man's nature, something colossal of which she was but dimly aware, and which she had no means of gauging, that checked her almost at the outset. She found herself standing before a closed door, a door which she had neither the audacity nor the desire to attempt to open. She was even a little fearful lest one day that door should open to her of its own accord and she should be constrained to enter whether she would or not.
But on the whole that talk with Jake had calmed her. The man was so temperate, so completely master of himself, and withal so staunch in the friendship he had established with her, that she could not but feel reassured. There was a delicacy in his consideration for her that warmed her heart. She knew by every instinct of her being that he would take care of her as he had promised. And she wanted someone to take care of her so badly, so badly.
She was so deadly tired of fending for herself.
She found Bunny in a mood of remarkable docility, and she managed to get him to bed without much trouble. He also was worn out after two nights of restlessness, and he fell asleep earlier than usual.
She herself sat for awhile in the little sitting-room with a book, but she found she could not read. She was too tired to fix her attention, and the thought of Jake kept intruding itself whenever she attempted to do so. It was wonderful how she had come to rely upon him, knowing so little of him. He had always been far more to Bunny than to her.
She was drifting into a kind of semi-doze, still with the memory of him passing and repassing through her brain, when there came the sound of a bell in the house, and almost immediately after, the opening of the sitting-room door.
She started up in surprise to see her landlady usher in a little, spare grey-whiskered man who walked with a strut and cleared his throat as he came with a noise like the growling of a dog. He made her think irresistibly of a Scotch terrier bristling for a fight.
He halted in the middle of the room, and banged with his umbrella on the floor, as one demanding a hearing.
"Hullo!" he said. "My name's Warren. You, I take it, are Maud Brian. If so, I'm your Uncle Edward."
Maud came forward, still feeling a little dazed. Since Jake's departure she had almost forgotten the approaching advent of this relative of hers.
"How do you do?" she said. "Yes, I am Maud Brian. Come and sit down!"
He took her hand, looking at her with small grey eyes that were keenly critical.
"How old are you?" he demanded.
"I am twenty-five," said Maud, faintly smiling.
He uttered a grunting growl and sat down with a jerk. "I've come straight from your mother to talk to you. She's a fool, always was. I hope you're not another."
"Thank you," said Maud sedately.
He brought his shaggy grey brows together. "I've come the length of England to see you, but I haven't any time to waste. I'm going back to-morrow. That letter of yours-I meant to answer it, but business pressed, and it had to stand over. Then I decided to come and see what sort of young woman you were before I did anything further. I couldn't stand a replica of your mother in my house. But-thank goodness-you're not much like her. She tells me you're thinking of making a marriage of convenience to get away from your step-father. Now, that's a very serious step for a young woman to contemplate. It seems to me I've turned up in the nick of time."
Maud, sitting facing him with her hands folded in her lap, still faintly smiled. The bluntness with which he tackled the situation appealed more to her sense of humour than to any other emotion. She realized that he was actually about to offer her a way of escape, but, curiously, she no longer felt any desire to avail herself of it. By his generous assurance that she was at liberty to do as she would, Jake had somehow managed to range her on his side. She did not want to escape any more. Moreover, there was Bunny to be thought of. She knew well in what direction his desires-and his welfare also-lay.
"It was very kind of you to come," she said. "But, as regards my marriage, my mind is quite made up. He-the man