Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/317

 that she had fallen in love with my dog; that she came not to seek me, but to follow him, who had raced joyously from her at his first knowledge of my home-coming.

I was secretly proud of the exquisite thoroughness with which he now ignored her. Again and again he assured me in her very presence that the woman was nothing, could be nothing, to him. I knew this well enough—I needed no protestations from him; but I thought it was well that she should know it. I saw that he had probably consented to receive her addresses through a long afternoon, had perhaps eaten of her provender, and even behaved with a complaisance which could have led her to hope that some day she might be something to him. But I knew that he had not persistently faced the peril of being trampled to death by me in his pulpy infancy—so great his fear of our separation—to let a mere woman come between us at this day. And it was well that he should now tell her this in the plainest of words.

The woman seemed to view me with an increased respect from that very moment. She tried first to bring Jim to her side by a soft call that almost made me tremble for his integrity. 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.