“I told you I didn’t mean to know you,” she answered firmly, “and I’m not coming up to the kennels in spite of the inspector, so you can just stop and let me out at Kilne as you pass. Don’t you think if you put the puppy under your arm—so—and covered it up with the rug—so—?” She prepared for active experiment, but Larry edged away with a jump, nearly pulling the car into a passing butcher.
“Lord, no, Deb! Keep away. I won’t have it! An’ you’re not even to think of gettin’ out. What’s the bettin’ old Fuss-pot isn’t trackin’ us for all he’s worth? You’ve got to deliver your own goods, so don’t be makin’ any more bones about it. I don’t know what I’ve done that you can’t bear ridin’ with me,” he added, very hurt. “We’ve had some rippin’ spins together, you an’ I, an’ now you won’t even let me take you the length of the park!”
“How’s Verity?” she asked, to change the subject, and Larrupper groaned again.
“It’s simply heart-rendin’! Whenever I drop in, she’s up to her eyes in music and ankle-deep in patterns of clothin’. She’s havin’ some sort of a sing-song, you know, an’ she’s trainin’ crowds of the awfullest people you ever saw in your life to sing an’ dance an’ sit up an’ beg. She’s never any time for me, nowadays, an’ I feel like drownin’ myself, Debbie dear. If I fall in of a mornin’, she’s always busy makin’ blots with tails to them, an’ if I stop long enough I have to listen while she sings the blots to see if they’re in the right place. In the afternoon she’s dancin’ out of a book with a chair or a table or Larry Lyndesay, or any other sort of a block that happens to be standin’ about doin’ nothin’; an’ in the evenin’ every blessed squawker in the place is there, makin’ night hideous, so I never get any notice worth mentionin’. It’s sickenin’, I can tell you!”
“You’re not half firm enough with her, Larry, and you’re a donkey to stand the way she treats you. Why don’t you pack her in your pocket and carry her off to the nearest registry-office, without asking her anything about it?”
But Larry shook his head.
“I’m not wantin’ her on those terms,” he said. “I’ve got a little pride still stickin’, for all I’m her ladyship’s football, an’ when she comes to me it’ll have to be jumpin’ an’ willin’, an’ not by the hair of her head.”
“Then you’ll never get her,” Deb replied, lifting the puppy in her arms as the kennels hove in sight. “Verity’s the sort that has to be captured, and if you don’t sail in and do it, you may go on playing round till the Judgment. You must put your foot down, Larry!”
“No!” Larry set his mouth. “No. She’s just a little bit above herself an’ ready to ride the world at present, but it won’t go on for always. Some day, she’ll find that life isn’t all beer an’ skittles an’ top o’ the mornin’, an’ when she scrambles out of the ditch she’ll be glad to see me sittin’ in the hedge. Till then I can wait—though I’m not sayin’ but the hedge is a bit thorny!” He heaved a sigh. “Hi! Hold on! Where are you goin’?” for Deb had slipped off the car as they neared the gate.
“There isn’t any need to drive in,” she said, avoiding the puppy’s wild and wet farewells. “I’ll shoot the thing inside—it will wander up all right—and then perhaps you will be kind enough to run me back home.”