Thaxton’s smile became galvanic and forced. His heart smote painfully against his ribs.
“Love me, love my dog!” he quoted, miserably, to himself.
Under cover of Miss Gregg’s railings against long-haired canines that scratched fleas and lay where people stumbled over them Vail lapsed into gloomy brooding.
“A week ago,” he told himself, chewing morbidly on the bitter reflection, “a week ago Macduff cared more for me than for any one else. Doris certainly cared no more for any one else than she cared for me. And to-night—! Neither of them has a thought for any one but Clive Creede. The half-gods may as well put up the shutters when the whole gods arrive. Funny old world!... Rotten old world!”
“Just as there are only two kinds of children—bad children and sick children,” Miss Gregg was orating, “so there are only two kinds of dogs—fleasome dogs and gleesome dogs. Fleasome dogs that scratch all the time and gleesome dogs that jump up on you with muddy paws. Isn’t that true, Thax? Now admit it!”
Hearing his own name as it penetrated, shrilly, far down into his glum reverie, Vail recalled himself jerkily to his duties as host.
“Admit it?” he echoed fervently. “Indeed I do! I’d have acted just the same way myself. I think you did the only thing any self-respecting woman could have done under the circumstances. Of course, it was tough on the others. But that was their lookout, not yours.”
He sank back into his black brooding; all oblivious of the glare of angry bewilderment wherewith the old lady favored him and of Doris’s wondering stare.
Next day Dr. Lawton declared Clive vastly improved. The following morning he pronounced him to be firm-set on the road to quick recovery. On the third day he ventured to let the convalescent tell his whole story, and Clive was none the worse for the ordeal of its telling.
The doctor, going downstairs again, found awaiting him two members of the same trio who had listened to his earlier recital. Doris had driven in to Aura for the mail and had not yet returned. Thus only her aunt and Thaxton greeted the doctor on his descent from the sick room.