But he did not so much as turn
his head. His eyes were for me alone. With a rubber shoe flung gallantly
over his shoulder, he danced incitingly before me, praying that I would
pretend to be crazed by the sight of his prize and seek to wrench it
from him.

But I pretended instead to be bored by his importunities, choosing to
rub it in. To her who longed for his friendly notice,--a little throaty
bark, a lift of the paw, perhaps a winsome laying of his head along her
lap,--I affected indifference to his infatuation for me. I pretended
always to have been a perfect devil of a fellow among the dogs, and
professed loftily not to have divined the secret of my innumerable and
unvarying conquests.

"Dogs are so foolishly faithful," remarked Miss Lansdale, with polite
acerbity.

"I know it," I conceded; "that fellow thinks I am the most beautiful
person in all the world."

She said "Indeed?" with an inflection and a sweeping glance at me which
I found charged with meaning. But I knew well enough that I had for all
time mastered a certain measure of her difficult respect.

"And he's such a fine dog, too," she added in a tone intended to convey
to me the full extent of her pity for him.

"I have him remarkably well trained," I said. "I can often force him to
notice people whom I like, especially if they are clever enough to let
him see that they like me rather well."

"It would be almost worth while," she remarked with a longing look at
Jim but none at me.

"Many have found it quite so," I said, ordering Jim to charge at my
feet, "but it's a great bore, I assure you."

I needed not to be told that she envied me my power, and so deep and
genuine appeared to be her love for him that secretly I hoped he would
again be amiable to her during my absence on the morrow. The contrast of
his manner on my return would further chasten her.

From the porch we both watched her move across the little stretch of
lawn, and, at my whispered suggestion, Jim rose to his feet and barked
her insultingly over the last twenty feet of it. I was delighted to note
that this induced a shamed acceleration of her pace and a tighter
clutching of her skirts. I thought it important to let her know clearly
and at once just who was the master in my own house.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LOYALTY OF JIM

If it must be my lot to dream out a life of insubstantial visions, that
were well. But it appeared not unreasonable that I should keep at least
one