“Well, you might at least take him for walks,” Rose pleaded.  “Nobody could object to that.”  “Yes, I might take him for walks,” the young man conceded thoughtfully.  “Of course, I don’t get home from business till tea-time, and I have to leave directly after breakfast—­”

“Our Pepper, when we go to town, takes us to the station and sees us off; and you are not at business on Saturday afternoons.”  “I usually play tennis or something on Saturday afternoons—­”

“Well, take him and let him see you play tennis.  He’d love it.”

“I question whether my club would.  But see here, Miss Pennycuick, I was going to meet some lady friends this afternoon, but now I won’t; I will take him for a walk instead.  And I’ll get up in the mornings, and give him a run before breakfast.  There!”

“Oh, how kind, how good you are!” she exclaimed delightedly.

“Not at all,” he returned, glowing.  “It is you who are good, taking all this trouble about us.  I am only ashamed that you should have had to do it, and that you should have caught me in this state”—­another blushing reference to his distressing toilet.

“Never mind your state,” she consoled him sweetly, rising from her chair.  “I like you better in this state than I do when you are smart.  I thought you were too smart to—­to condescend to trouble yourself about a poor dog.”

“I am sorry you had such a bad opinion of me.  It was simply—­the thing didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it.”

“I know.  But it is all right now.  Well, I must go.  You will never get your gun cleaned at this rate.”

“Bother the gun!  This is better than—­I mean—­won’t you take a glass of wine?”

She declined emphatically and with haste, and hurried into the hall.  He opened the front door for her, and they stood together for a moment on the dustless door-mat, mathematically laid upon verandah boards as white as new-peeled almonds.

“What a lovely garden!” remarked Rose, as she stepped down to it.  Those were her words, but what she really said in her mind was:  “Who would think he was a draper?”

Francie was aroused from her Sunday afternoon snooze on the drawing-room sofa.

“What is the matter with that dog?” she complained pettishly.  “Surely, after howling like a starved dingo all night—­be quiet, Pepper!  One of you is enough.”  Rose’s terrier was up and fidgeting, with pricked ears.

“They must be killing him!” cried Deb, lifting her handsome head from her book.

“Oh, no,” said Rose; “that sort of bark means joy, not pain.”

“Poor, dear beast!  What’s making him joyful, I wonder?”

“I must go up and see,” said Rose, who had carefully refrained from mentioning her forenoon proceedings.