"Try!"
So she walked one way and Gray started in[174] the opposite direction, and the bewildered puppy, who at first supposed it was all in play, dashed from one back to the other, until the widening distance between them perplexed and finally began to trouble him.
Nevertheless, he continued to run back and forth from Gray to Constance Leslie as long as his rather wavering legs held out. Then, unable to decide, he stood panting midway between them, whining at moments, until, unable to understand or endure the spectacle of his two best beloveds vanishing in opposite directions, he put up his nose and howled.
Then both best beloveds came back running, and Constance snatched him to her breast and covered him with caresses.
"What on earth are we to do?" she said in consternation. "We nearly broke his heart that time."
"I don't know what to do," he admitted, much perplexed. "This pup seems to be impartial in his new-born affections."
"I thought," she said, with an admirable effort at self-denial, "that he rather showed a preference for you!"
"Why?"
"Because when he was sitting there howling his[175] little heart out, he seemed to look toward you a little oftener than he gazed in my direction."
Gray rose nobly to the self-effacing level of his generous adversary: