When Peggy returned to Durdlebury and put Doggie’s case before her father, and with unusual fervour roused him from his first stupefaction at the idea of her mad project, he said mildly:
“Let me understand clearly what you want to do. You want to go to Paris by yourself, discover a girl called Jeanne Bossière, concerning whose address you know nothing but two words—Port Royal—of course there is a Boulevard Port Royal somewhere south of the Luxembourg Gardens——”
“Then we’ve found her,” cried Peggy. “We only want the number.”
“Please don’t interrupt,” said the Dean. “You confuse me, my dear. You want to find this girl and re-establish communication between her and Marmaduke, and—er—generally play Fairy Godmother.”
“If you like to put it that way,” said Peggy.
“Are you quite certain you would be acting wisely? From Marmaduke’s point of view——”
“Don’t call him Marmaduke”—she bent forward and touched his knee caressingly—“Marmaduke could never have risked his life for a woman. It was Doggie who did it. She thinks of him as Doggie. Every one thinks of him now and loves him as Doggie. It was Oliver’s name for him, don’t you see? And he has stuck it out and made it a sort of title of honour and affection—and it was as Doggie that Oliver learned to love him, and in his last letter to Oliver he signed himself ‘Your devoted Doggie.’”
“My dear,” smiled the Dean, and quoted: “‘What’s in a name? A rose——’”
“Would be unendurable if it were called a bug-squash. The poetry would be knocked out of it.”
The Dean said indulgently: “So the name Doggie connotes something poetic and romantic?”