They were all so surprised—­so extremely taken aback by Flick’s behaviour—­that no one moved.  Then Mrs. Crofton gave a kind of gasp, and covering her face with her hands, cowered back in the corner of the sofa.

Timmy jumped up from the stool where he had been sitting, and as he did so, his mother called out affrightedly:  “Don’t go near Flick, Timmy—­he looks mad!”

But Timmy was no coward, and Flick was one of the few living things he loved in the world.  He threw himself on the floor beside his dog.  “Flick,” he said warningly, “what’s the matter, old chap?  Has anything hurt you?” As he spoke he put out his skinny little arms, and Flick, though still shivering and growling, began to calm down.

The little boy waited a moment, Flick panting convulsively in his arms, then he gathered the dog to him, and, getting up from the floor, walked quickly through the open window into the garden.

For a moment no one stirred—­and then Mr. Tosswill, who had been sitting rather apart from the rest of the party, got up and shut the window.

“What a curious thing,” he said musingly.  “I have always regarded Flick as one of the best tempered of dogs.  This is the first time he has ever behaved like this.”

Mrs. Crofton dragged herself up from her comfortable seat.  Her face looked white and pinched.  In spite of her real effort to control herself, there were tears in her eyes and her lips were trembling.  “If you are on the telephone,” she said appealingly, “I should be so grateful if you should send for a fly.  I don’t feel well enough to walk home.”  She tried to smile.  “My nerves have been upset for some time past.”

Janet felt vexed and concerned.  “Jack will drive you home in our old pony cart,” she said soothingly.  “Will you go and bring it round, Tom?”

Tom slipped off, and there arose a babel of voices, everyone saying how sorry they were, Dolly especially, explaining eagerly how she herself had personally superintended the shutting up of the dog.  As for Betty, she went off into the hall and quietly fetched Mrs. Crofton’s charming evening cloak and becoming little hood.  As she did so she told herself again that Mrs. Crofton must be much better off than they had thought her to be from her letter.  Every woman, even the least sophisticated, knows what really beautiful and becoming clothes cost nowadays, and Mrs. Crofton’s clothes were eminently beautiful and becoming.

As Betty went back into the drawing-room, she heard the visitor say:—­“I was born with a kind of horror of dogs, and I’m afraid that in some uncanny way they always know it!  It’s such bad luck, for most nice people and all the people I myself have cared for in my life, have been dog lovers.”

And at that Dolly, who had a most unfortunate habit of blurting out just those things which, even if people are thinking of, they mostly leave unsaid, exclaimed:—­“Your husband bred terriers, didn’t he?  Flick came from him.”