“You are not quite ready: you have only one glove on. Tryphie, you might pay some respect to those who find you a home and protection.”
The girl coloured slightly but made no answer, only exchanged glances with Maude, and kissed her hand to her.
“Dear me!” exclaimed her ladyship, “where did I put my flaçon? Oh, I remember.”
She marched in a stately manner with the roll of a female beadle, or an alderman in his gold chain of office, to an Indian cabinet, opened a drawer and inserted her hand.
“Why, what is this?” she exclaimed, drawing out something whitey brown and throwing it down with an ejaculation of annoyance. “Disgusting!”
The toy terrier uttered a sharp yelp of excitement, leaped from her ladyship’s arms on to a table, upsetting a china cup and saucer, bounded on to the floor and seized that which her ladyship had rejected—to wit, a savoury-looking chicken bone, and proceeded to denude it of its flesh.
“I declare your papa grows insufferable,” cried her ladyship. “His brain must be softening. I shall consult the doctor about him.”
Certainly it was very annoying, for her ladyship’s pearly grey Parisian glove had a broad brown smear of osmazome across it, and all due to Lord Barmouth’s magpie-like trick of hiding scraps of food away for future consumption, in Indian cabinets and china jars, and then forgetting the caché he had made.
Mademoiselle Justine was summoned, a fresh pair of gloves obtained and put on with the maid’s assistance, by which time the dog had polished the bone, and probably in his own tongue, being a well-bred animal, said a grace and blessed Lord Barmouth. Then he was once more taken up, his mouth and paws wiped by Justine on one of her ladyship’s clean handkerchiefs; Tryphie nodded a good-bye to her cousin, to whom she had hardly dared to speak, and then followed her ladyship downstairs.
Maude rose, trembling and in dread lest something she feared should occur, for her ladyship was later than usual in going out, and this was a Wednesday, which day was sacred to the canine post.