Anthony caught him from one of his bounds, held the white scrap very close and let him lick his nose. Then he bade him be a good dog and handed him to the girl. She received him tenderly.
"I'm very much obliged to you," he said. "Good day. I'll let myself out. It—it'll be better."
One more caress, and he passed out into the hall—blindly. There had been a look in the bright brown eyes that tore his heart.
For a moment Patch fought desperately. Then he heard a door opened and listened intently. A draught swept, and the door closed heavily. With a sudden wrench he was out of the girl's arms and across the shadowy hall. For a moment he stood sniffing, his nose clapped to the sill of the front door. Then he lifted up his voice and wept bitterly.
* * * * *
In the long mirror, half-way up the front staircase, Major Anthony
Lyveden, D.S.O., surveyed himself stealthily.
"Not much the matter with the kit," he said grudgingly.
That was largely because there was nothing the matter with the man.
Six feet one in his socks, deep-chested and admirably proportioned, Lyveden cut a fine figure. His thick dark hair was short and carefully brushed, and his lean face was brown with the play of wind and rain and sun. Such features as his broad forehead, aquiline nose, and strong well-shaped mouth, would have distinguished any countenance. Yet the whole of it was shapely and clean-cut, and there was a quiet fearlessness about the keen grey eyes that set you thinking. As a footman he looked magnificent. But he would have killed any master stone dead. Royalty itself could not have borne such a comparison.
As we have seen, the strain of the last fortnight, culminating in Blue Moon's failure and his parting with Patch, had played the deuce with his temperament. The man had gone all to pieces. That, now that a week had gone by, he was himself again, the following letter will show. It will serve also as a record, and so, gentlemen, spare both of us.