Several were from his friends, banal and everyday. And one was from Tremlett, his own groom, and this was full of Moonlighter and—Pike! That gave him just a moment's feeling—Pike! Tremlett had "made so bold" as to have some snapshots done by a friend, and he ventured to send one to his master. The "very pictur'" of the dog, he said, and it was true. Ah! this touched him, this little photograph of Pike.
"Dear little chap," he said to himself as he looked. "My dear little chap."
And then an instantaneous desire to show it to his lady came over him, and he went back to the sitting-room in haste.
There she was—the post had come for her too, it seemed, and she looked up with an expression of concentrated fierceness from a missive she was reading as he entered the room. Her marvellous self-control banished all but love from her eyes after they had rested on him for an instant, but his senses—so fine now—had remarked the first glance, just as his eye had seen the heavy royal crown on the paper as she hastily folded it and threw it carelessly aside.
"Darling!" he said "Oh! look! here is a picture of Pike!"
And if it had been the most important document concerning the fate of nations the lady could not have examined it with more enthralled interest and attention than she did this snapshot photograph of a rough terrier dog.
"What a sweet fellow!" she said. "Look at his eye! so intelligent; look at that patte! See, even he is asking one to love him—and I do—I do—"
"Darling!" said Paul in ecstasy, "oh, if we only had him here, wouldn't that be good!"
And he never knew why his lady suddenly threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him with passionate tenderness and love, her eyes soft as a dove's.
"Oh, my Paul," she said, a break in her wonderful voice, whose tones said many things, "my young, darling, English Paul!"