Chapter XXVI: The Deed of Gift

"Oh, isn't it good to be home again?" said Bunny. "Isn't it just good?"

They sat before the blazing fire in the parlour after a late supper, drinking Mrs. Lovelace's rhubarb wine and enjoying the glow.

Maud's cheeks were flushed and her eyes very bright. She did not look at her husband very often, and there was that about her manner that seemed to suggest that she was striving against considerable odds to appear at her ease.

"How are the animals, Jake?" she asked. "How is The Hundredth Chance?"

Jake on the other side of the fire was lying back in his chair with a cigarette between his lips. His gaitered legs were stretched out before him, and eyes fixed downwards as if he were half-asleep. He did not stir from this attitude as he made reply.

"They're all going strong. You must see them for yourself in the morning."

His words did not seem to invite any further development of the subject. Perhaps he really was sleepy. Maud bent to fondle Chops who lay on the hearth at her feet, and asked no more.

But Bunny at once plunged into the silence. He had not permitted any silences during supper, having plainly determined that the evening should not drag. He also was a little fevered in his animation, a fact which made Jake's absolute calmness of demeanour all the more marked. He had been getting quieter and quieter ever since the removal of the supper things.

Bunny fought against this quietness, talking with a nervous excitement that elicited only occasional low replies from Maud and none at all from Jake.

But it was Jake who finally at the striking of the clock broke in upon his insistent chatter. "Time you went to bed, my son. Say good night and go!"

A quick word sprang at once to Bunny's lips, but Jake's hand abruptly gripped his knee hard and he swallowed it unspoken. He got up with a somewhat wry smile.

"Yes, all right. I'll go. But I don't generally clear out before eleven, do I, Maud?"

"You do in my house, whatever you do in Maud's," said Jake imperturbably. "Good night, my son! pleasant dreams to you!"

He looked up at Bunny with a sudden, kindly smile, and Bunny bent impulsively to him.

"Say, Jake, come and see me presently, when--when you come up yourself!"

The request was proffered in an undertone with unmistakable nervousness. Jake looked him straight in the eyes.

"All right," he said.

The door closed upon Bunny, and there fell a silence.

Maud sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap. But there was no repose in her attitude, only a dumb tension that seemed to indicate suspense.

Jake leaned forward slowly, at length, took the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into the heart of the fire. Then, without looking at her, he spoke.

"What's the matter with the little chap?"

She looked across at him quickly, from beneath eyelids that slightly fluttered. "Is there anything the matter with him? I didn't notice."

"He was nearly crying when he said good night, anyway," said Jake.

"Oh, was he! Perhaps he thought--perhaps he thought--you were vexed with him," murmured Maud.

"Why should he think that?" Jake's eyes, piercingly bright, suddenly met hers.

She winced involuntarily, as one might wince from the glare of a searchlight. Then, with a visible effort, she met them. "Jake," she said, "I--want to talk to you."

Jake's eyes fell away from her. They went with a sombre directness to the fire and became fixed. "About your affairs, my girl?" he said.

She hesitated momentarily; then: "Our affairs, Jake," she said, her voice very low.

He jerked his head as if to indicate attention, but he said nothing further. It remained for her to proceed, and she did so, slowly, as if carefully weighing each word.

"You have left me a free hand in the settling of Uncle Edward's affairs, and Mr. Craven is a very clever business man. I know Uncle Edward trusted him implicitly. But I should like you to know everything that has been done--that is, if you care to know." She paused a moment. "You do care, don't you, Jake?" she said.

"I care for your welfare, my girl," he made answer. "Not being your trustee, it's not essential that I should be told every detail."

"I wish you were a trustee," she said.

He bent his head. "Thanks. But I don't know that I am especially well suited to be. It's better for you, I reckon, to have--a free hand. And it's a mighty lot better that you should have a man of education to attend to your business affairs."

"Jake!" There was quick pain in her voice, pain that he could not fail to note. She leaned forward, stretching a hand to him across the hearth. "Jake!" she said again very earnestly. "Do you think that--that I shall ever forget--that I owe you--everything?"

He took her hand, but with a curious doggedness he kept his eyes averted. "I guess we're quits," he said. "You don't owe me anything. I took my payment for all I ever gave you."

There was no bitterness in his voice, no emotion of any sort. The clasp of his fingers was no more than kind. His mouth looked stubborn.

But a strange sort of stubbornness seemed to have entered into Maud also. She kept her hand in his.

"I take--another view," she said. "I don't think any man--has ever done--more for a woman--than you have done--for me." Haltingly the words came, but she spoke them bravely. "It's a big, big debt, Jake--immeasurably big,--a personal debt that can never be repaid. I feel--contemptible--whenever I think of it." Her voice shook.

Jake's fingers closed upon hers with a quiet strength. "You've no call to feel like that," he said.

Her hand clung to his suddenly, desperately. "You--believe in me, Jake?" she whispered.

His face did not vary. "I guess I've proved that," he said very steadily.

She uttered a sharp, catching sigh. "Yes--yes! That is another debt. But till--till that night you came to me at Uncle Edward's--I was never--quite--sure."

"Why weren't you sure?" He put the question abruptly, with an insistence that demanded an instant reply. But still he did not look at her. His eyes gazed ever straight into the fire.

Tremulously she answered him. "I met Charlie--Lord Saltash--the morning after--down at 'The Anchor.' He said--he said--you wouldn't be--such a fool. That was why I went away."

"Damn him!" The words burst from Jake with terrific violence. He sprang to his feet as a man goaded beyond all bearing. "Curse him!" he said, his face gone white with passion. "May his soul rot in----"

"Jake!" The name was a cry, breaking through the fierce rush of his fury. Maud was on her feet also. She held him by the shoulders, in a vital, quivering hold. "You are not to say it!" she said and her face was close to his, compelling him to silence. "You are not to curse him! A curse comes back--comes back!"

She put one hand on his mouth, for he seemed on the verge of breaking forth afresh. She looked him full in the eyes.

"You're not to, Jake!" she said. "I won't have it. You who have been--so splendidly generous--can afford to leave a beaten enemy alone. Ah,--Jake!"

For his arms were round her, gripping her. The naked soul of the man was looking into hers. With a supreme impulse, she took her hand away and gave her lips to his, surrendered herself wholly to the fiery passion that had suddenly blazed forth upon her.

But in a moment his arms were loosened. He went back against the mantelpiece as though he had been struck a blow between the eyes. He stood motionless, his mouth working but uttering no word.

She stood before him, pale to the lips but not without a certain strength. She had offered, and he had not taken. But yet her doubts were set at rest. Perhaps for the first time in her life she faced him wholly unafraid.

"So--we will leave him out of it," she said, breathing fast. "He has--ceased to count."

Jake moved, pulled himself together. "You must forgive me," he said. "Maybe you'd be wise to leave me I shall be--saner--presently."

She put one hand against his breast. "No, Jake, no. You're going to be sane now. Sit down again! Let us finish our talk!"

He looked at her with the red light still smouldering in his eyes. After a moment he took her wrist with a grip in which passion lingered. "I'm trying to act fair by you, my girl," he said, with a faint smile that somehow touched her heart. "It seems to me you've never had a chance--not a real chance--all your life. What with Bunny--and me--and--and--Saltash"--his mouth twisted over the name--"you've been handicapped right and left. That's why I've sworn to myself that I won't interfere with you anymore. You shall have a free hand--a free hand. This money of yours makes it possible. Play with it, spend it, enjoy yourself! Be happy, my girl, be happy! I won't step in to prevent it."

Maud's eyes were suddenly full of tears, yet she laughed. "You've sworn to give me a free hand?" she said.

He nodded. "Sure."

Her other hand clasped his quickly, pleadingly. "Then, Jake, you won't be angry if--if--I decide to do something that--that you may not--altogether--like?"

"It's your money," said Jake doggedly.

"Yes--yes. And--I have your permission--your unreserved consent--to--to do what I like with it?"

Her voice quivered. She was clinging to him almost unconsciously.

He stood steadily facing her. He had forced his passion down again, but there was tension about him still. "My girl," he said, "if you want to turn it all into paper and make a bonfire of it,--I shan't object."

"Oh, I don't want to do that," she said, and again she faintly laughed though in her laughter there was a sound of tears. "I felt just at first--just at first--that I didn't want it. But I've got over that, though I've come to the conclusion that there's no fun to be got out of money unless there's someone to enjoy it with you. And so--and so--" she became a little breathless and her hands pressed his in agitation--"I'm making over half of it to you--by deed of gift. Please, Jake, please--you don't mind?"

"What?" said Jake. He raised his tawny brows, staring at her for an instant in sheer, overwhelming amazement; then they came down uncompromisingly in a thick straight line above his eyes. He put her hands away from him gently but with the utmost decision. He turned himself from her and bent to pick up the poker. Then, as he stirred the fire, with his face in the glow he spoke briefly, almost roughly. "I don't know if you're joking or in earnest; but that's the one thing that I can't--and won't--consent to. So I reckon that's all there is to it."

"Jake!" There was consternation in her voice, bitter disappointment, keen pain. "Oh, Jake," she said, "you can't mean to refuse--like that!"

"How did you expect me to refuse?" said Jake, without turning.

She answered him chokingly. "Not as if--as if--I had insulted you."

He dropped the poker and straightened himself. "Maybe you didn't intend any insult," he said. "But you don't credit me with an over-allowance of self-respect, do you?"

She did not answer him, for she could not. She stood fighting for self-control, striving to collect her scattered forces, but so overwhelmingly distressed that she could not attempt to withstand him.

He turned round to her slowly at length. "Say, Maud," he said, something of the old kindliness in his tone, "we won't talk any more about it. Guess it's an impossible subject. You'll know me better next time."

She struggled for utterance with lips that trembled piteously; her eyes were brimming with tears. Finally, with a small, hopeless gesture, she turned away, moved across the room blindly, found the door and fumblingly opened it.

"Good night!" she whispered then in a voice that was scarcely audible, and in another moment the door closed without sound behind her.

She was gone. Jake's mouth set itself in a hard, straight line. He squared his shoulders with the instinctive movement of a man facing odds. He began to feel with brutal deliberation for his cigarette-case.

The rasp of his match made a short, indignant sound in the quiet room. It was like a sharp protest. The smell of his tobacco began to dominate the atmosphere. He smoked furiously.

Suddenly there came a check. The cigarette had ceased to draw. He ground his teeth on it, turned, and spat it into the flames. It hissed and vanished.

Then Jake abruptly lifted his clenched hands above, his head and swore a frightful oath that comprehended himself, the world, and all things in it, in one vast anathema.