He broke off, to look at Lad.
As the collie had jumped down from the car and had started toward the house, he had struck Lady's trail; and he had followed it. It had led him to the tool-house. Finding Lady was locked inside and unhappy, he had come galloping back to the Master.
Standing in front of the man, and whining softly, he was scanning the faces of his two deities with troubled eagerness. Evidently, he considered that Lady had been locked in by mistake; and he was pleading for her release. As these humans did not seem to catch the idea his eyes and expression conveyed, he trotted a few steps toward the tool-house and then paused to look invitingly back at them.
Twice he did this. Then, coming up to the Master, he caught the latter's coat-hem lightly between his teeth and tugged on it as he backed toward the tool-house.
"No, old friend," said the Master, petting the silken head so appealingly upraised to him. "I know what you're getting at. But I can't let her out. Tomorrow morning. Not till then. Come on up to dinner."
Unwillingly and with wistful backward looks, Lad followed the Mistress and the Master to the house and into the dining room and to his wonted place on the floor at the Master's left side. But, more than once during the meal, the man caught the collie's eyes fixed on him in worried supplication; and was hard put to it not to grant the plea which fairly clamored in his chum's mute gaze.
After dinner, when the Mistress and the Master set off on their usual evening walk, Lad was not on hand to accompany them. As a rule, he was all around them and in front and behind, in a series of gay rushes, as they started on these walks. But not until the Master called him, tonight, did he appear. And then he came up dolorously from the tool-house.
Lad did not understand, at all, what was wrong. He knew only that Lady had been shut up in a place she detested and that she was horribly unhappy and that the Master would not let her out. It perplexed him; and it made him increasingly wretched. Not only did he miss his playfully capricious young mate, but her unhappiness made him heartsick.
Vainly, he tried to plead with the Master for her release, as the walk began; and again at its end.
There were such a lot of things in the world that even the cleverest collie could not make head or tail of! And most of these things were sad.