“Let me advise you not to try that too often, my friend,” he said seriously. “It is just as well for you that the house is not a trifle higher, as I presume you would not have taken the difference into your calculations. And a nice time your mistress must be having, if these are the ways in which you indulge.”
The dog’s answer was a vigorous bound, which almost upset the young man’s balance; then rushing wildly round and round the open place under the plane trees, his black hair streaming in the wind, he suddenly pulled himself up and stood watching his friend, his head on one side, his small eyes gleaming from a dishevelled tangle, and his long tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“Yes,” said the tall Englishman, still regarding him meditatively, “I understand what all that means, old fellow. You have a good supply of animal spirits, and a difficulty in working off the steam under present circumstances. I don’t know that I feel as sympathetic as you have a right to expect, but, at any rate, I shall be able to do something for you, and if you could contrive to make over a little of what is really inconveniencing you, I have not the slightest objection to be troubled with it. Where is your mistress?”
As he spoke he turned towards the door and went in. The house seemed to have fallen by accident among all the great buildings of Florence: it had no porter, no staircase with flats going on and on; it had been built or altered by some Englishman, who had a fancy for a home that should be like England, although the beautiful Italian skies were overhead; and Jack Ibbetson, when he came out with his aunt, Miss Cartwright, to look for a house, fell upon this place, and did not rest until he got hold of it for her. Inside the door there were flowers; a few steps led into a passage which turned off at right angles, and then Ibbetson opened the door of a small salon, and walked through it towards the window, while his eye took in certain evidences that Cartouche had been holding high revel there to the detriment of cushions and covers.
“So you still go on the rampage, old fellow?” he said to the dog, who kept close to his heels in a state of suppressed excitement. “If I were you I would leave off this style of thing, I really would. It is nothing short of tyranny on your part. Hallo! what’s up now?”
For with a wild swoop Cartouche pounced into a corner, dragged out a basket, rushed to the window, and in a moment more was careering round and round the little garden in which the proprietor had indulged his English tastes. It was an odd little garden, with a wall round it, and a poor pretence at English grass, but the wall had capers and pretty hanging things growing out of it, and lizards darting up and down; and the beauty of the garden lay in its great flowering shrubs, in the magnolias, just beginning to show scarlet flames of seed among their glossy leaves, in the bright green of an orange tree and the broad ribbed foliage of Japanese medlars. That some one was sitting there became evident in another moment, when there were uttered a series of appeals in a feminine voice—
“Cartouche, Cartouche! Oh, Cartouche, how can you! Come here, you naughty, naughty dog! I shall be obliged to beat you, you know I shall! Come, now, like a good dog. Cartouche, Cartouche, come here!”
The young Englishman, standing back at the window, smiled at the little scene, at the pretty soft little lady who had got up anxiously and left her work on the chair, at the dog’s evident enjoyment, his pretence of remorse and abandonment, the slow wag of his tail as he waited for his mistress to approach, the swift rush with which he made his escape. At last, when he had drawn her to the limit of the garden, he suddenly dropped the basket, raced back to her chair, and seizing a loose tassel which she had been about to sew on to a cushion, pranced up to the young man with an air of infinite triumph. Miss Cartwright turned round and saw her nephew emerging.
“Jack, is it you?” she cried. And then she hurried towards him with both her kind hands outstretched. “My dear, dear boy, I can hardly believe it; this is delightful, this is why I have had no letter! Have you just come? Have you had nothing to eat? Angela shall send up something at once, and Winter shall go to Franconi’s. My dear, it is so good to see you, and I was thinking of nothing but that naughty dog. What is that you are taking out of his mouth?”
“I’m afraid it’s a tassel,” said Jack gravely. “Shall I flog him?”