“The oddest thing I ever saw, Archdale,” said Roupert. “You know Fifi’s usual amiability. Call her, Frank.”
Frank Hampden whistled, and clicked his fingers together in an encouraging manner.
“Fifi—come here, Fifi!” he said.
For a moment I thought that this most confiding of ladies was going to fly at him. But apparently she could not find the courage for an attack, and, snapping and growling, retreated behind the window curtains.
“And that to me,” said Hampden, licking his lips as he spoke. “Me, who adore dogs. Don’t you, Mr. Archdale?”
As he said that I knew that he lied; that Fifi’s detestation of him was met with a hatred quite as vivid but more controlled. I can no more account for that conviction than for the sense of hellish evil that my first glance at him had conveyed to me. He was quite young, twenty-two or twenty-three for a guess, and yet from behind the mask of that soft boyish face there looked out a spirit hard and malignant and mature, an adept in terrible paths. The impression was quite inexplicable but perfectly clear. Then, looking across to Roupert, I saw he was watching his cousin with eager intentness.
I had to answer the direct question he had put to me, but it required an effort to speak to him or to look at him.
“No; personally I don’t care about dogs,” I said. “I rather dislike them, and so enjoy a most unwelcome popularity among them. Fifi, for instance: your cousin will tell you how blind is her adoration for me!”
“See if Fifi will come to you if I stand by you,” said Hampden. Fifi had half-emerged from her ambush behind the curtains, and I called to her. But she would not leave the retreat where her rage and terror had driven her. She gave a little apologetic whine, as if to signify that I was asking an impossible thing, and beat with her stumpy tail on the carpet.
“Now go back to your chair again, Frank,” said Roupert.