He was going over a publication on Spanish Architecture, Catalonian work of the 14th and 15th centuries. Sunny was enjoying herself very innocently at the piano player, and Jerry should, as he afterwards admitted to himself, have "left well enough alone." However it be, nothing would do but he must summon Sunny to his side to share the pleasure of looking at these splendid examples of the magnificent work of the great Spanish architect Fabre.
Now Sunny possessed, to an uncanny degree, that gift of understanding which is extremely rare with her sex. She possessed it, in fact, to such a fine degree, that nearly everyone who met her found himself pouring out the history of his life into her sympathetic and understanding little ear. There was something about her way of looking at one, a sort of hanging absorbedly upon one's narrative of their history, that assured the narrator that he not only had the understanding but the sympathy of his pretty listener.
Jerry, therefore, summoned her from her diversions at the piano-player, which she hastened to leave, though the record was her favourite, "Gluhwormchen." Her murmuring exclamations above his shoulder revealed her instant enthusiasm and appreciation of just those details that Jerry knew would escape the less artistic eye of an ordinary person. She held pages open, to prolong the pleasure of looking at certain window traceries; she picked out easily the Geometrical Gothic type, and wanted Jerry's full explanation as to its difference to those of another period. Her little pink forefinger ever found points of interest in the sketches which made him chuckle with delight and pride. The value of Sunny's criticism and opinion, moreover, was enhanced by the fact that she conveyed to the young man her conviction, that while of course these were incredibly marvellous examples of the skill of ancient Spanish architects, they were not a patch on the work which J. Addison Hammond was going to do in the not far distant future. Though he protested against this with proper modesty, he was nevertheless beguiled and bewitched by the shining dream she called up. He had failed to note that she was perched on the arm of his chair, and that her head rested perilously near to his own. Possibly he would never have discovered this at all had not an accident occurred that sent Hatton, busy on some task or other about the studio, scurrying in undignified flight from the room, with his stony face covered with his hands. From the kitchen regions thereafter came the sound of suppressed clucks, which by this time could have been recognised as Hatton's laughter.
What happened was this: At a moment when a turned leaf revealed a sketch of ravishing splendour, Sunny's breathless admiration, and Jerry's own motion of appreciation (one fist clapped into the palm of the other hand), caused Sunny to slip from the arm of the chair onto Jerry's knee.
Jerry arose. To do him justice, he arose instantly, depositing both book and Sunny upon the floor. He then proceeded to read her such a savage lecture upon her pagan ways, that the evident effect was so instantly apparent on her, that he stopped midway, glared, stared at the crushed little figure, so tenderly closing the upset book, and then turned on his heel and made an ignominious and undignified exit from the room.
"What's the use? What's the use?" demanded Jerry of the unresponsive walls. "Hang it all, this sort of thing has got to stop. What in Sam Hill is keeping that blamed Proff?"
He always liked to imagine at these times that his faith was pinned upon the early coming of Professor Barrowes, when he was assured the hectic state of affairs in his studio would be clarified and Sunny disposed of once and forever. Sunny, however, had been nearly a month now in his studio, and in spite of a hundred telegrams to Professor Barrowes, demanding to know the exact time of his arrival, threatening moreover to hold back that $2,000 required to bring the dashed Dinornis from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, to New York City, U. S. A., he got no satisfactory response from his old-time teacher. That monomaniac merely replied with letter-long telegrams—very expensive coming from the extreme northwestern part of Canada to New York City, giving more detailed information about the above mentioned Dinornis, or Dynosaurus, or whatever he called it, and explaining why more and more funds were required. It seems the Professor was tangled up in quite a serious dispute with the Canadian authorities. Some indignant English residents of Canada had aroused the alarm of Canadians, by pointing out that Dynosaureses were worth as much as radium, and that a mere Yankee should not be permitted to carry off those fossilized bones of the original inhabitants of Canada, which ought, instead, to be donated to the noble English nation across the sea.
As Jerry paced his floor he paused to reread the words of the motto recently pinned upon his wall, and, of course, it was as follows: "Honi soit qui mal y pense." That was enough for Jerry. There was no question of the fact that he had been "a pig and a brute," terms often in these days applied by himself to himself. Sunny was certainly not to be blamed for the accident of slipping from the arm of his chair. True, he had already told her that she was not to sit on that arm, but that was a minor matter, and there was no occasion for his making a "mountain out of a molehill."
Having arrived at the conclusion that, as usual, he, not Sunny, was the one to blame, it was in the nature of Jerry that he should hurriedly descend to admit his fault. Downstairs, therefore again, and into the now empty studio. Sounds came from the direction of the kitchen that were entirely too sweet to belong to the "pie-faced" Hatton, whose disgusting recent mirth might mean the loss of his job, ominously thought Jerry.
In the kitchen Sunny was discovered on her knees with her lips close to a small hole in the floor in the corner of the room. She was half whistling, half whispering, and she was scattering something into and about that hole, which had been apparently cut out with a vegetable knife, that looked very much like cheese and breadcrumbs. Presently the amazed Jerry saw first one and then another tiny face appear at that hole, and there then issued forth a full-fledged family of the mouse species, young and old, large and small, male and female. The explanation of the previously inexplicable appearance in the studio of countless mice was now perfectly clear, and the guiltlessness of that accused janitor made visible. Jerry's ward had been feeding and cultivating mice! At his exclamation, she arose reproachfully, the mice scampering back into their hole.