“If Chase is elected Mayor, he’ll beat you for the House next year,” Gergue had written.
Caretall wired: “I’m coming home.” And he came.
But there was no trace of concern in his amiable countenance as they rode to his home now. He joked Joan Arnold into gayety, laughed Wint Chase out of his sulkiness, and pinched his daughter’s cheek until she threatened to ditch the car if he kept it up. Thus, when they stopped before the house, every one was in good humor.
They stopped, and Wint Chase was the first to alight. A muffled bark greeted him from the house, and he laughed and ran up the walk and opened the door. A wiry, tan-colored dog rushed out and engulfed him; Muldoon, an Irish terrier of parts, who had been left behind because he would neither ride in an automobile nor calmly suffer his master to do so. Muldoon was one creature whom Wint unreservedly loved; and Muldoon returned the affection. Master and dog, the first transports over, came down the walk again as the others climbed from the car.
Amos Caretall was urging them all to come in. Jack Routt said he would; but Joan shook her head. “I can’t,” she laughed. “I promised mother to bring home some bread.”
“I’ll take it out in the car,” Agnes pleaded. “Please....”
Joan stuck to her guns. Agnes pouted. Wint did not commit himself; he seemed to take it for granted that he would go with Joan. She turned to him. “You stay, Wint!”
The old sulky light flamed in his eyes again. “No—I’m going with you.”
They left the others, amid a little flurry of farewells from Agnes, and turned uptown. Muldoon circled them madly, running at top speed in a desperate effort to work off the spirits generated during his confinement. Joan laughed at the dog, whistled him to her, stooped to tug at his ears affectionately. “You’re full of it, aren’t you, Muldoon?”
He whined aloud in his desperate desire to answer her, then darted away again. She straightened and they went on, the girl still smiling. Wint looked at her once, and then again, and then he, too, smiled—at her and at the dog.