Then, being very young and very egregiously in love, Thaxton buried his face in his hands above the littered desk—and prayed.
It was nearly half an hour before he heard the door reopen and heard Doris leave.
Her step was slower now. In spite of Vail’s momentary hope she did not pause when she reached the top of the stairs, but kept straight on to her own room, entering it and shutting the door softly behind her.
That night the nurse reported gayly to Vail that the invalid seemed fifty per cent better and that he had actually been hungry for his supper. Wherefore—as though one household could hold only a certain amount of hunger—Thaxton failed to summon up the remotest semblance of appetite for his own well-served dinner.
But he talked very much and very gayly at times throughout the meal, and he even forced himself to meet Doris’s gaze in exaggeratedly fraternal fashion and to laugh a great deal more than Miss Gregg’s acid witticisms demanded.
Macduff, too, graced the evening meal with his presence for the first time since Clive’s arrival. For hours he had lain beside his master’s bed, curled happily within reach of Clive’s caressing hand. The dog’s deadly fear was gone—the fear lest he should never again be allowed to see and to be with his god.
Clive was still there and was still his chum. And the barrier door was no longer closed. Thus Macduff at last had scope to think of other things than of the terror of losing his rediscovered deity. Among these other things was the fact that he was ravenously hungry and that at Thaxton’s side at the dinner table there was much chance for tidbits.
Hence he attended dinner, lying again on the floor at Vail’s left for the servants to stub their toes over as of yore.
“So we have the sorrowing Macduff among us once more!” remarked Miss Gregg. “That is what I call a decidedly limited rapture. Especially when he registers fleas. I verily believe he is the most popular and populous flea-caféteria in all dogdom. Why, that collie—!”
“Oh, I love to see him lying there again, so happy and proud!” spoke up Doris, tossing him a fragment of chicken. “Dear old Mac!”