"Oh," said Mrs. Duff-Whalley, rearing her head like an affronted hen, "the difficulty, I assure you, is not to find guests but to decide which to select."
"Quite so, quite so, naturally," murmured Mr. Jackson soothingly; he had laughed at the rhyme and felt apologetic. Then, losing his head completely under the cold glance his hostess turned on him, he added, "Go ye into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in."
Mrs. Jowett took a bit of toast and broke it nervously. She was never quite at ease in Mrs. Duff-Whalley's company. Incapable of an unkind thought or a bitter word, so refined as to be almost inaudible, she felt jarred and bumped in her mind after a talk with that lady, even as her body would have felt after bathing in a rough sea among rocks. Realising that the conversation had taken an unfortunate turn, she tried to divert it into more pleasing channels.
Turning to Mr. Jackson, she said: "Such a sad thing happened to-day. Our dear old dog, Rover, had to be put away. He was sixteen, very deaf and rather cross, and the Vet. said it wasn't kind to keep him; and of course after that we felt there was nothing to be said. The Vet. said he would come this morning at ten o'clock, and it quite spoilt my breakfast, for dear Rover sat beside me and begged, and I felt like an executioner; and then he went out for a walk by himself—a thing he hadn't done since he had become frail—and when the Vet. came there was no Rover."
"Dear, dear!" said Mr. Jackson, helping himself to an entrée.
"The really dreadful thing about it," continued Mrs. Jowett, refusing the entrée, "was that Johnston—the gardener, you know—had dug the grave where I had chosen he should lie, dear Rover, and—you have heard the expression, Mr. Jackson—a yawning grave? Well, the grave yawned. It was too heartrending. I simply went to my room and cried, and Tim went in one direction and Johnston in another, and the maids looked too, and they found the dear doggie, and the Vet.—a most obliging man called Davidson—came back … and dear Rover is at rest."
Mrs. Jowett looked sadly round and found that the whole table had been listening to the recital.
Few people have not loved a dog and known the small tragedy of parting with it when its all too short day was over, and even the "lamentable comedy" of Mrs. Jowett's telling of the tale made no one smile.
Muriel leant forward, genuinely distressed. "I'm so frightfully sorry,
Mrs. Jowett; you'll miss dear old Rover dreadfully."
"It's a beastly business putting away a dog," said Lewis Elliot. "I always wish they had the same lease of life as we have. 'Threescore and ten years do sum up' … and it's none too long for such faithful friends."