Page:Son of the wind.djvu/271

RV 253 of sleep, her face softly flushed from it. "How is he?"

"His tongue is better," Carron said critically, aware this time he spoke the truth. "I don't think he's quite so hot."

"And he is moving his tail," she said in excitement. "Oh, do you think he's going to be all right?" "Of course he is. Didn't I tell you?" He was delighted to see how she accepted this quite seriously. "What do you mean by getting up at this hour?" he asked her sternly. "Go up-stairs again and get some more sleep. Run! I hear your mother coming." This piece of imagination had the desired effect. Carron lit a pipe and walked about in the open space through which the drive made its loop. He felt happy to see the terrier's ears lift faintly with returning interest in the world, happy to see that whatever he touched he was successful in. With the empty feeling of before-breakfast, the smoke of the pipe, the fine, light, out-of-door air he grew a little poetic, looked up at the façade of the new hotel and perceived a likeness in it to Mrs. Rader. It was spare, a little disapproving, but not in the least forbidding, with an exact sense of its position in society and its duty toward the world at large, and for these things a deep respect. Also the little vertical apertures for light, in the garret, gave