"Miserable!" Mr Breen broke in, and sat up, stiffening, as if half inclined to be offended, even with this very nice young lady.
"There isn't a dog in the country better off. We had his place in the yard built on purpose for him; had his kennel made to a special design—"
"A lovely kennel! I never saw a better."
"Clean straw every few days; all his food cooked—"
"But CHAINED, Mr Breen. And a collie, too!"
"Well, we couldn't have him messing all over the place; at any rate, my people wouldn't. Oh, I assure you, Miss Pennycuick, Bruce is in clover. He was only baying the moon. Dogs often do that. It's only their fun—though it isn't fun to us."
"Fun!" sighed Rose helplessly. And she fixed her eyes upon her companion, as they sat VIS-A-VIS on the edges of their brocaded chairs, with no sense that he was a strange young man—a gaze that troubled and disconcerted him. "I am sure," she answered earnestly, "that you have a kind heart. One has only to look at you to know it."
"The idea never occurred to me before," he mumbled, flattered by her discernment, and no more offended with her.
"I am sure no one could mean better by a dog than you, giving him all those nice things," she continued. "But—but you don't THINK. You don't try to imagine yourself chained up in one spot night and day, week in and week out, with nothing to do—no interests, no amusements, unable to get to your work, to go shooting with your friends, to do anything that you were born to do—and consider how you would like it."
Mr Peter submitted to her humbly the fact that he was not a dog.