"Come, Gracie!"
Taking the child's little hand in her own neatly gloved one as she spoke, the woman turned, evidently intent on walking back in the direction whence she had come.
That brought Masters to his feet in a moment—cap in hand, and apology in mouth. Full of crudities as was his character, he possessed an instinctive courtesy. In all the arraignments for his breaches of Society's unwritten laws, impoliteness had never figured. He spoke; said:
"Pray do not let me drive you away! Possession may be nine points of the law, but we may consider ourselves beyond the pale of its practice here. If, as I hear—from lips the truth of which it would be absurd to doubt—that this is considered your seat," his smile was not an unpleasing one, "I should never forgive myself if trespass of mine interfered with the owner's use of it."
"Is that pen you are using," inquired Gracie suddenly, à propos of nothing, "one of those you put the ink in at the wrong end, and trickle it out of the other?"
A softness blended with the smile on Masters' face and merged into that kindly expression of the strong for the weak. It was the successful catching of just such tenderness which made Landseer's name figure so prominently in the world of Art. As the author looked down at the mite from his six-feet altitude, the look on his face was an irresistible reminder of a St. Bernard's kindness to a toy terrier.
"You have accurately described it, little woman," he answered. "But it does not always trickle when you want it to—though it generally does when you don't."
The child looked mystified; evidently deemed further explanation necessary. Miss Mivvins was still standing, waiting to go. Masters hesitated; looked from one to the other. Politeness made him say:
"I am leaving—pray be seated."
But the woman saw through that. Would have been very high up the fool grade indeed had she failed to do so. It really was quite too transparent an artifice. When truth is sacrificed on the altar of politeness the ceremony needs skill, otherwise the lie becomes even more offensive than the act it was to cover.