"I should say so. Koshimo, as a puppy, cost a hundred and fifty guineas. My Karl gave him to me on the anniversary of our wedding. We can't take them to Schwalbach with us, and the other person I had to look after them was a wretch. Behind my back she used to pinch Koshimo, and the poor darling's spirit is quite broken."
"Yet you are going to leave them behind in the care of--of the person you engage?"
"That is what I thought of doing. I have no alternative. They don't permit dogs at the Cure Hotel."
"Then would she be required to live in the house?"
"Oh, no--only to come for a half-day every morning. Sundays included, to bathe the darlings, make their toilets, and take them for a walk in the Park. After that they will be in the care of Fritz, the house-boy, who is quite good. Only he has not a woman's delicacy of touch and sympathy. They need sympathy quite as much as a human being does, if not more so."
Isla repressed an almost overpowering desire to laugh aloud, and she politely inquired what would be the remuneration for this occupation.
"Seven-and-sixpence a week and luncheon. I reckoned that by the time you had returned from the Park it would be one or half-past one, and the servants' dinner would be going on, so that your luncheon would never be missed," said Madame Schultze with an engaging frankness. "Of course, the work is not hard, and it is delightful, besides. You don't know what a privilege it is to have the care of such pets. They are so dainty and so very, very human."
Isla thanked her and said that she was afraid the post would not suit her.
"Oh, but why not come for a few days and try it?" said the odd woman, who had taken a fancy to Isla. "You look different from the creatures who usually call when one wants anybody. You look even as if you might have had pet dogs of your own."
Something caught at Isla's throat as she remembered.