I wasn’t taken aback. My kind mistress never objects when I bring home a dog friend. Some women are very fussy about entertaining.
We went into the library, where mistress was alone, looking over the mail that lay on the big table. She had been out walking, and still had on her warm coat and cloth hat. She never wore furs now.
“Good dogs,” she said absently, “come close to the fire,” and she went on reading a letter.
Gringo and I lay down on my hearth-stone, and presently in came master from town.
He kissed his wife—“How rosy you look,” he said.
She let the letter slip to the table.
“Do I?” she said slowly.
“Yes—this life in the country is a thousand times better for you than the city.”
“Oh, Rudolph,” she said, “I met Stanna just now in her coupé. Really, that woman is resplendent. She looked like a tropical flower in a glass box. I wish I were half as handsome.”