"Oh dear, no. William's as strong as a young calf. Just a bone occasionally and any scraps there are. There's tons of his biscuits down there ... only two meals a day and no snacks between, and as much exercise as is convenient—though, mind you, they're easy dogs in that way—they don't need you to be racing about all day like some."
The present fate of William Bloomsbury with the lengthy and exalted pedigree being settled, Jan asked politely for her tenants, Colonel and Mrs. Walcote, heard that it had been an excellent and open season, and enjoyed her guest's real enthusiasm about Wren's End.
After a few minutes of general conversation he got up to go. She saw him out and rang up the lift, but no lift came. She rang again and again. Nothing happened. Evidently something had gone wrong, and she saw people walking upstairs to the flats below. Just as she was explaining the mishap to her guest, the telephone bell sounded loudly and persistently.
"Oh dear!" she cried. "Would you mind very much stopping a young lady with two little children, if you meet them at the bottom of the stairs, and tell her she is on no account to carry up little Fay. It's my friend, Miss Morton; she's out with them, and she's not at all strong; tell her to wait for me. I'll come the minute I've answered this wretched 'phone."
"Don't you worry, Miss Ross, I'll stop 'em
and carry up the kiddies myself," Captain Middleton called as he started to run down, and Jan went back to answer the telephone.
He ran fast, for Jan's voice had been anxious and distressed. Five long flights did he descend, and at the bottom he met Meg and the children just arrived to hear the melancholy news from the hall porter.
Meg always wheeled little Fay to and from the gardens in the funny little folding "pram" they had brought from India. The plump baby was a tight fit, but the queer little carriage was light and easily managed. The big policeman outside the gate often held up the traffic to let Meg and her charges get across the road safely, and she would sail serenely through the avenue of fiercely panting monsters with Tony holding on to her coat, while little Fay waved delightedly to the drivers. That afternoon she was very tired, for it had started to rain, cold, gusty March rain. She had hurried home in dread lest Tony should take cold. It seemed the last straw, somehow, that the lift should have gone wrong. She left the pram with the porter and was just bracing herself to carry heavy little Fay when this very tall young man came dashing down the staircase, saw them and raised his hat. "Miss Morton? Miss Ross has just entrusted me with a message ... that I'm to carry her niece upstairs," and he took little Fay out of Meg's arms.
Meg looked up at him. She had to look up a long way—and he looked down into a very small white face.
The buffeting wind that had given little Fay the loveliest colour, and Tony a very pink nose, only left Meg pallid with fatigue; but she smiled at Captain Middleton, and it was a smile of such radiant happiness as wholly transfigured her face. It came from the exquisite knowledge that Jan had thought of her, had known she would be tired.