[The Boss of Little Arcady by Harry Leon Wilson]@TWC D-Link bookThe Boss of Little Arcady CHAPTER XXIII 10/11
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.
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