I would not presume to usurp Fantine’s place.
Fantine was a Gordon setter. When I first saw her she was little more than a fluffy ball in Warren’s lap to which he was addressing some remarks as he sat upon the floor of our study.
I did not disturb the conference.
“Puppy,” he was saying, “your name is Fantine. Do you understand, Fantine?”
For a moment the puppy gazed solemnly into his face, tilted its head slightly first on one side and then on the other, cocking it more and more in a puzzled effort at comprehension. Then it panted a puppy smile—licked Godfrey’s hand and wagged its little feather of a tail.
“Ah, you understand, do you?” Warren went on. “Well, you and I will understand one another thoroughly after a while. I can teach you a little—not much, but still something worth knowing. For instance—not to bite my watch chain with those tiny milk teeth of yours! And you’ll teach me—O, lots of things I want to know.—You’ll show me the men I ought to trust and the ones to keep an eye on. Won’t you, Fantine?”
The puppy put a fat paw on Warren’s breast and wagged its whole body with its tail.
“And, Fantine, you’ll never forget me as some people do, or think me ugly because I’ve got red hair? You have red hair yourself, you minx!—See those tiny flecks through your black coat? Tan, you say? Well, you’ll have beauty enough for both of us some day. I’ll teach you how to hunt too—Is that a yawn? I make you tired, do I, Mademoiselle? Well, I dare say you do know more about hunting than I ever shall. I apologise. But we’ll be great friends anyway—inseparables—worse than your master and this great oaf who’s stolen in upon our confidential chat,—eh, Fantine?”
The puppy gave a sleepy sigh, nestling under Godfrey’s coat and, as he stooped to peer at her, lifted a baby head and licked his face.
From that hour I was to a certain extent supplanted. But Fantine approved of me which was all I could hope. Of extraordinary intelligence she seemed to interpret every mood of her master and sometimes almost to anticipate his orders. The man and the dog were indeed inseparables. If he left a room where she was sleeping it was as though the very air she breathed had been exhausted, and she would wake with a start and follow him instantly. The first time Warren sent her to his country place, some fifty miles from town, he forwarded her in a crate by express, and, the morning after she arrived he returned to town, leaving her with the gardener. Before nightfall she was at his office door whining for admittance. How she had found her way back no one ever knew.