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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.
The days passed with a delightful monotony. The Aunt and her pet Tabbies all day, a sound sleep, an early waking, a heavenly meeting with Alcibiades at the back door, the restoring of him to his master. And every day the chain grew heavier, the walks longer, the talks more interesting and more intimate.
It was very wrong, of course, but what was the girl to do? You cannot be rude to a man who is saving your dog, your darling, from rat-poisons, rivers and ropes. And if dogs will break chains, why – so will girls.
It was on Christmas Day that the spell was shattered. Judy awoke at the accustomed time, but no welcome whine, no pathetic scrabble of eager paws broke the respectable stillness of the Aunt’s house. Judy listened. She even crept down to the side gate. A feeling of misery, of real physical faintness came over her. Alcibiades was not there! he had not come! He had, indeed, forgotten her.
The conviction that the master of Alcibiades would be the last to appreciate the new attachment of his dog comforted her a little; but for all that the day was grey, life seemed well-nigh worthless. Judy now had leisure to reconsider her position, and she was not pleased with herself. It was in the thick of the Christmas beef that the thought awoke.
“He is tired of meeting me; he has locked Alcibiades up. If he hadn’t, the darling must have come.” Since this solution left Alcibiades without a stain upon his faithful character, it ought to have been comforting, but it wasn’t.
She felt her cheeks flush.
“Good gracious, child,” said the Aunt, “what are you turning that curious purple colour for? If the fire’s too much for you, let Mary put the screen to the back of your chair, for goodness’ sake.”
When the plum-pudding’s remains had passed away and the perfunctory dessert was over the Aunt retired to rest.
Judy was left to face the grey afternoon alone. She sat staring into the fire till her eyes ached. She felt very lonely, very injured, very forlorn. There was a footfall on the steps – a manly tread; a knock at the door – a kind of I have-a-perfect-right-to-knock-here-if-I-like sort of knock.
Judy jumped up to look in the glass and pat her hair, for no one but an idiot could have helped knowing who it was that stepped and knocked.
He came in.
“Alone?” said he. “What luck! I asked for the Aunt. Meant to say Friend of your Father’s, and all that. But this is better. Judy, I couldn’t stand it… She’s coming. I can hear her.”
There was indeed a sound of stout house boots trampling overhead, of drawers being pulled out, of wardrobe doors being opened.
“I wish everything was different,” said he; “but, oh Judy, darling, do say yes! say it now, this minute; and then when she comes down I can tell her we’re engaged – see?”
“It’s all very well,” said Judy, two hours later, when, with the licence of an engaged young lady, she said good-bye to her lover at the front door. “You say you do – and – and yes, of course, I’m glad – but Alcibiades doesn’t love me any more.”
“Doesn’t he? you wait till I bring him to-morrow!”
“But he never came this morning.”
“Poor little beast! Judy, the fact is I’ve gone on making the chain heavier and heavier, and this morning – well, it was too much for him. He couldn’t drag it all the way: it was a regular ship’s cable, don’t you know? I came up with him at Blackheath Station, and he was so done I had to carry him all the way home in my arms. He’s quite all right again now; I left him at home, tied to the fire-irons in my bedroom.”
“Then he does love me, after all,” said Judy.
“Well, he’s not the only one,” said the Captain.
And at that moment came from the other side of the front door the familiar whine, the well-known scratching mingled with strange clanking noises.
Next instant three happy people were embracing on the door-mat amid the sobs of Judy, the laughter of her lover, the yelps of Alcibiades, and the deafening rattle of a poker, a pair of tongs, and half a shovel.