petuously.

At the piano some one laughed, and Mr. Heatherbloom went.

"Why on earth, Aunt, did you want to keep him two weeks longer?" he
heard the girl's now passionate tones ask as he walked away.

"For a number of reasons, my dear," came the response. "One, because he
wanted to leave me in the lurch. Another--it will be easier to keep an
eye on him until Naughty is returned, or"--her voice had the vindictive
ring of a Roman matron's--"this person's culpability is proven. Naughty
is a valuable dog and--"

Mr. Heatherbloom's footsteps hastened; he had caught quite enough, but
as he disappeared to the rear, the dream chords on the piano, now
louder, continued to follow him.

CHAPTER VII

DEVELOPMENTS

That night, as if his rest were not already sufficiently disturbed, a
disconcerting possibility occurred abruptly to Mr. Heatherbloom. It was
born in the darkness of the hour; he could not dispel it. What if the
person in whom he had confided in the park were not all she seemed? He
hated the insinuating suggestion but it insisted on creeping into his
brain. He had once, not so long ago, in his search for cheap lodgings,
stumbled upon a roomful of alleged cripples and maimed disreputables who
made mendicancy a profession; their jibes and jests on the credulity of
the public yet rang in his ears. What if she--his casual acquaintance of
the day before--belonged to that yet greater class of dissemblers who
ply their arts and simulations with more individualism and intelligence?

Mr. Heatherbloom sat up in bed. Naughty might be worth five or even ten
thousand dollars. He remembered having read at some previous time about
a certain canine whose proud mistress and owner was alleged to have
refused twenty thousand for him. The perspiration broke out on Mr.
Heatherbloom's face. Was Naughty of this category? He looked very
"classy," as if there couldn't be another beast quite like him in the
world. What had been the twenty-thousand-dollar mistress' name; not
Van--impossible!

But the more he told himself "impossible", the more positive grew a
certain perverse inner asseveration that it was quite possible. And what
if the person in the park had known it? He reviewed the circumstances of
their different meetings; details that had not impressed themselves upon
him at the time--that had almost escaped his notice, now stood out
clearer--too clear, in his mind. He remembered how she had brightened
astonishingly after t