THE DOG PAYS
Pitchouné repaid what was given him.
He did not think that by getting well, reserving the right for the
rest of his life to a distinguished limp in his right leg, that he
had done all that was expected of him. He developed an ecstatic
devotion to the captain, impossible for any human heart adequately to
return. He followed Sabron like a shadow and when he could not
follow him, took his place on a chair in the window, there to sit,
his sharp profile against the light, his pointed ears forward,
watching for the uniform he knew and admired extravagantly.
Pitchouné was a thoroughbred, and every muscle and fiber showed it,
every hair and point asserted it, and he loved as only thoroughbreds
can. You may say what you like about mongrel attachments, the
thoroughbred in all cases reserves his brilliancy for crises.
Sabron, who had only seen Miss Redmond twice and thought about her
countless times, never quite forgave his friend for the illness that
kept him from the château. There was in Sabron's mind, much as he
loved Pitchouné, the feeling that if he had gone that night...
There was never another invitation!
"_Voyons, mon cher_," his colonel had said to him kindly the next
time he met him, "what stupidity have you been guilty of at the
Château d'Esclignac?"
Poor Sabron blushed and shrugged his shoulders.
"I assure you," said the colonel, "that I did you harm there without
knowing it. Madame d'Esclignac, who is a very clever woman, asked me
with interest and sympathy, who your 'very sick friend' could be. As
no one was very sick according to my knowledge, I told her so. She
seemed triumphant and I saw at once that I had put you in the wrong."
It would have been simple to have explained to the colonel, but
Sabron, reticent and reserved, did not choose to do so. He made a
very insufficient excuse, and the colonel, as well as the marquise,
thought ill of him. He learned later, with chagrin, that his friends
were gone from the Midi. Rooted to the spot himself by his duties,
he could not follow them. Meanwhile Pitchouné thrived, grew, cheered
his loneliness, jumped over a stick, learned a trick or two from
Brunet and a great many fascinating wiles and ways, no doubt
inherited from his mother. He had a sense of humor truly Irish, a
power of devotion that we designate as "canine," no doubt because no
member of the human race has ever deserved it.