Man and Maid Part 35

"Ripping little beast, isn't he?" said the stranger.

"I suppose you're invalided home?" she said. She couldn't help it. A man in the Service. One who had been quartered at Maidstone, her own dear Maidstone. He was no longer a stranger.

"Yes," he said; "beastly bore. But I shall be all right in two or three months; I hope the fighting won't be all over by then."

"Have you sold this gentleman anything?" said the Aunt firmly, "because Mrs Biddle wants to look at some d'oyleys."

"I'm just selling something," answered Judy. Then she turned to him and spoke softly. "I say, do you really like dogs?" said she.

"Of course I do." The young man opened surprised grey eyes at her, as who should say: "Now, do I look like a man who doesn't like dogs?"

"Well, then," she said, "Alcibiades _is_ for sale."

"Is that his name? Why?"

"Oh, surely you know: wasn't it Alcibiades who gave up being dictator or something rather than have his dog's ears cut off?"

"I seem to remember something of the sort," he said.

"Well," said she, "his price is twenty guineas, but----"

He whistled very softly.

"Yes--I know," she said, "but I'll--yes, Aunt, in one moment!" She went on in an agonised undertone: "His price is twenty guineas. Say you'll have him. Say it _loud_. You won't really have to pay anything for him--No, I'm not mad."

"I'll give you twenty guineas for the dog," said the man, standing straight and soldierly against the tumbled ma.s.s of mats and pin-cushions and chair-backs.

The Aunt drew a long breath and turned to minister to Mrs Biddle's deep need of d'oyleys.

"Come and have tea," said the stranger; "you're tired out."

"No--I can't. Of course I can't--but I'll take you over to Mrs Piddock's stall and----" She led him away. "Look here," she said, "I'm sure you're a decent sort. Here's the money to pay for him. My aunt says if I don't sell him she'll have him killed. Will you keep him for me till my people come home? Oh, do--he really _is_ an angel. And give me your name and address. You must think me a maniac, but I am so horribly fond of him.

Will you?"

"Of course I will," he said heartily, "but I shall pay for him. I'll write a cheque: you can pay me when you get him back. Thank you--yes, I am sure that pin-cushion would delight my aunt."

Judy, with burning cheeks, found her way back to her stall.

"Oh, Alcibiades," she said, unfastening the blue ribbon, "I'm sure he's nice. Don't bite him, there's a dear!"

A cheque signed "Richard Graeme" and a card with an address came into Judy's hands, and the chain of Alcibiades left them.

"I know you'll be good to him," she said; "don't give him meat, only biscuit, and sulphur in his drinking water. But you know all that.

You've got me out of a frightful hole, and I'll bless you as long as I live. Good-bye." She stooped to the Aberdeen, now surprised and pained.

"Good-bye, my dear old boy!"

And Alcibiades, stubborn resistance in every line of his figure, in every hair of his coat, was dragged away through the crowded bazaar.

Judy went to bed very tired. The bazaar had been a success, and the success had been talked over and the money counted till late in the evening--nearly eleven, that is, which is late for Tabbies--yet she woke at four. Some one was calling her. It was--no, he was gone--her eyes p.r.i.c.ked at the thought--yet--surely that could be the voice of no other than Alcibiades? She sat up in bed and listened. It was he! That was his dear voice whining at the side gate. Those were his darling paws scratching the sacred paint off it.

Judy swept down the stairs like a silent whirlwind, turned key, drew bolts, and in a moment she and the cur were "sobbing in each other's arms."

She carried him up to her room, washed his dear, muddy paws, and spread her golf cape that he might lie on the bed beside her.

In chilliest, earliest dawn she rose and dressed. She found a wire that had supported her pictures at the bazaar, and she wrote a note and tied it to the collar of Alcibiades, where she noticed and untied a frayed end of rope. This was the note:

"He has run home to me. Why did you take the chain off? He always bites through cord. Don't beat him for it; he'll soon forget me."

The tears came into her eyes as she wrote it; it seemed to her so very pathetic. She did not quite believe that Alcibiades would soon forget her--but if he did----?

The note did not lack pathos, either, in the eyes of Captain Graeme, when, two hours later, he found it under the chin of a mournfully howling Alcibiades, securely attached by picture wire to the railings of his mother's house.

The Captain took a turn on the Heath, and thought. And his thoughts were these: "She's the prettiest girl I've seen since I came home. It's deuced dull here. Shouldn't wonder if she's dull too, poor little girl."

Then he went home and cut a glove in pieces and sewed the pieces together, slowly but solidly as soldiers and sailors do sew. So that when, two nights later, the claws and the voice of Alcibiades roused Judy from sleep--her aunt most fortunately slept on the other side of the house--she found, after the first rapturous hug of reunion, a something under the hand that caressed the neck of Alcibiades.

The gaslight in her own room defined the something as a bag of leather, the tan leather of which gentlemen's gloves are made. There was a bit of worn strap hanging below it. Within was a note.

"A thousand thanks for bringing him home. If he _should_ run away again, please let me know. And don't trouble to send him back. I'll call for him, if I may.

"RICHARD GRAEME."

Judy would very much have liked to let Captain Graeme call, but there are such things as aunts.

She tied another note to the "cur's" collar and wired him once more to the Paragon House railings. The note said:

"It's no use. He can bite through leather. Do use a chain."

Next time Alcibiades returned he dragged a half yard of fine chain. It was neatly filed, but Judy was a woman and the detail escaped her.

That morning she and Alcibiades slept late, the dressing-bell was ringing as she woke.

The cook helped; the Aunt most fortunately had a luncheon engagement with a Tabby in Sidcup. Alcibiades being promised a walk later, consented to wait, trifling with a bone, in silence and the coal cellar.

At eleven Judy rewarded his patience. She went out with him, and somehow it seemed wise to put on a pleasant-coloured dress, and one's best furs and one's prettiest hat.

"I am afraid I shall see him," she told herself; "but," she added, "I am much more afraid that my aunt will see Alcibiades." On the edge of the Heath she met him. "Here's the dear dog," she said. "Oh, can't you find a stronger chain?"

"I'll try," said he. "What a ripping day, isn't it? Oh, are you going straight back? I wish we'd met anywhere but at a bazaar."

"So do I," she said heartfeltly, and caressed the now careless Aberdeen: it was at a bazaar that she had had to sell that angel.

"Mayn't I walk home with you?" he said. And she could not think of any polite way of saying no, though she knew just how terrible Alcibiades would make the final parting.

Next morning the chain dragged by Alcibiades was slightly thicker; it also was filed, and this too Judy failed to notice. Early as it was she did not go out in the mackintosh but in something simple and blue, with kingfisher's wings in her hat.

The morning was thinly bright. Alcibiades saw a cat and chased it towards Morden College just as Judy met Captain Graeme. It was, for her, impossible not to follow the "cur." And how could the Captain do otherwise than follow, too? And if two people walk together it is churlish not to talk.

Next day the chain was thicker, the hour propitious, and the walk longer; that was the day when she found out that he had known her father in South Africa.