As he spoke, Joel was strolling down the dusty walk, toward the gateway, to give such sour welcome as he might to his partner’s sweetheart. The collie abandoned his own intent to gambol ahead; and paced sedately along at Joel’s side.
The average high-class collie has reduced snobbishness to an art. Witness the courtesy wherewith many of them hasten to greet a well-dressed stranger, as contrasted with their fierce rebuff of a tramp.
Perhaps it was Fenno’s unwonted splendor of raiment which made Treve elect to continue the gateward walk in his company, rather than dash on ahead. Yet of late, he had more than once chosen Joel’s companionship rather than Mack’s. As they walked, Joel continued to mutter under his breath.
“She said she ‘wanted to meet her darling Royce’s dear old partner,’” he sniffed. “Well, Trevy, the pleasure’s all her’n. (Not that I’m a-grudgin’ her the treat of seein’ me.) Nothing’d do but she must come over to supper with us, Trevy. And if Sing Lee don’t cook no better’n he’s been cookin’ lately, she’s sure due to remember this supper for quite a spell. She—Whatcher smellin’ at, Trevy?” he broke off.
The dog had slowed in his walk, and was moving stiff-legged. His nostrils were sniffing the still air with queer intensity. The car was drawing to a stop, in front of the gate, twenty feet away;—quite near enough for the hated lily-of-the-valley perfume to reach the collie’s acute senses.
But it was not perfume he was smelling. It was something far more familiar and far more detested; something still too faint to reach Fenno’s grosser powers of scent.
The noisy little car stopped. Mack, on its far side, got out and hurried around the runabout, to help Reine Houston to the ground. He did not even pause in his loverly haste long enough to turn off the noisy engine; an engine whose coughing reverberations drowned all lesser sounds.
Reine did not wait for her lover to reach her side and assist her in the wholly simple task of opening the car door and stepping to earth. Coming toward the gateway, from the direction of the house, were Joel and the dog. Anxious to make a good impression on Fenno, the girl jumped down before Mack could come around from the far side of the car. Her plump hands outstretched in friendly greeting to Joel, she ran forward to meet him.
There was a patch of roadside tumbleweed between the car and the gate. The girl prepared to clear this in her stride. But she did not do so.