And he made excuse to get out of the way. He was still thinking; thinking hard and with a growing unhappiness. His thoughts were not yet crystallisable into words.
But next morning, after a night of less continuous slumber than he could recall in many a year, he dressed and started down to breakfast with a brand-new and granite-hard resolve in his tired mind. For once in his life he had solved a problem—had solved it all himself.
As he opened the door of his bedroom Jeff leaped eagerly up from his nightly vigil post across the outer threshold. Stiff as he was from his shoulder hurt, the dog gambolled gleefully round his master, patting at Dan’s knees with his flying white paws, wriggling himself into an ecstatic interrogation mark, and whimpering with delight at the wonderful fact that his adored demigod was once more with him after ten whole hours of absence.
Thus, the world over, do the average run of collies give morning salute to the man or woman they have accepted as their deity. And, as ever, the greeting warmed Dan Rorke’s long-loveless heart. He stooped over and patted the silken head.
The collie growled in horrific menace and caught Dan’s big hand between his mighty jaws as if to crush it. But the jaws did not exert the pressure of a fraction of an ounce on the firm flesh they had so playfully imprisoned. And the throaty growls were belied by a furious wagging of the plumed tail.
This was Jeff’s favourite game with his master. With no one else would he deign to play.
Dan rumpled the dog’s soft ears, and looked with a queer new timidity into the deep-set dark eyes of his chum. At the unquestioning joyous devotion he saw there, he felt a tiny twinge of relief. Something he had let himself fear, in the long night’s meditations, had not yet begun to happen. There was still time, plenty of time.
And, his resolve firmer than ever, he ran down to the breakfast room, where Red Keegan was already seating himself at the table.
“Chron’cle’s got a spread on your match with Feltman!” was the manager’s morning salutation. “First page; and again, under Kampfmuller’s sign’ture, on the sporting page. We’ve got a good start, all right. Now——”