“No. Turn it over in your mind. If you are set on exposing the whole, very well—it shall be so.” He glanced at the clock. “You will wish to change your dress before we dine. We’ll say no more of the matter at this present Mrs. Cheviot, if you should like it, I will take you to Mrs. Rugby. We dine in half an hour.”
She thanked him and rose, but before he had taken two steps towards the door, it opened and Nicky bounced into the room, looking tired and disheveled, but triumphant. “I’ve found him!” he announced.
“Good God!” John exclaimed. “Where, Nicky?”
“Why, you would never believe it! In our own West Wood!”
“ What? ”
“Ay! And I had been searching forever but never thought, until I was in flat despair, that he might have come this way! He knew I was after him too, and in the devil of a temper, for he hid from me under a bush! It was the merest chance that I caught sight of him, and he would not come out, not he!”
“Hid from you under a bush?” John repeated blankly.
“Yes, and I had to drag him out by main force, so plastered with mud I have shut him in the stables and he may roll himself clean in the straw. Lord, how thankful I am to have got him back safe!”
John gave a gasp. “Are you talking about that damnable mongrel of yours?” he demanded.
“He is not a mongrel! He is a crossbred! Why, what else should I be talking about, I should like to know?”