She made as if she would get up to demonstrate this fact, but he stopped her. "Take a little!" he drawled. "Lord Saltash has had the trouble of fetching it."
"I would rather not," she said. "I would much rather not."
"Let her please herself!" said Saltash sharply.
But Jake’s hand, steady as rock, was already holding the glass to her lips. She drank as one compelled.
Saltash fidgeted up and down in front of the window in evident dissatisfaction, his ugly face full of lines. "I am infernally sorry this has happened," he said. "You ought to have had the stuff sooner. I wish I had ordered champagne. We’ll have some presently. Ah, that’ll do, Jake, that’ll do! Don’t force it on her, for Heaven’s sake! Look here, you and I will clear out now, and let her rest in front of the fire. You’d like that, Maud, wouldn’t you?"
She looked up at him. "Yes; but not too near the fire. And--and leave the door open. I want to hear--to know--" Her voice failed, sank into silence.
"All right," Jake said quietly. "I’m not leaving you till it’s over."
The calm decision of his speech silenced all protest. Maud attempted none. Saltash shrugged his shoulders and flung round on his heel. Jake bent to offer a steady arm.
She accepted his support in silence. There was that about him that would not brook resistance just then. She was sure that Saltash was aware of it also, for after a very brief pause he began to whistle under his breath and in a very few moments more sauntered from the room.
Jake, very quiet and determined, led her to a settee.
"I won’t lie down," she said restlessly. "I want to listen."
Jake was looking round for a chair. Failing to see one, he seated himself by her side. "I reckon this is the most respectable piece of furniture in the place," he observed. "Here is a cushion. Lean back and shut your eyes!"
"I wish you wouldn’t wait here," she murmured uneasily.
And then his hand descended upon hers and held it.
She started at his touch, seeking instinctively to free herself, but in the end she yielded, lying back in a tense stillness in which she knew the beating of her heart to be clearly audible.
What was he going to say to her? What had he overheard? What must he think of the agitation she had displayed upon discovering him?