That same afternoon Monsieur Hector Launay's assistant entered the
business place hurriedly, followed by Joby, and exclaimed--
"I am rather late. Has she come?"
"Come, _non_, M'sieu; she comes no more."
"What?"
"I have a letter from my lady in which she say I have done her
daughter's hair so much good that the visits will cease. I am paid, and
_voila tout_."
"Good heavens! Does she suspect?"
"_Non_, M'sieu," said the Frenchman, smiling. "You have been too
capable an assistant, and the occasion has ceased; but I will think, and
M'sieu shall see the lady again. I will take counsel with Justine, and
we will have a new plan. I am a Frenchman, and spirituel. I cannot
live wizout I see _ma chere_ sometimes. Justine must come, so be of
good hope; we must wait."
Charley Melton walked out of the reception-room, followed by Joby, who
kept looking up at his master in a curious manner, as if half-pitying
and wholly divining his feelings. There was a curious leer too in one
eye, which seemed to look maliciously at his proprietor, who took the
greatest care that he, Joby, should not form any canine intimacies of a
tender nature, and Joby's leering eye seemed to say, "How do you like
being morally chained up, my boy?"
Charley Melton went homeward, turned, and walked right up to the Euston
Road, where he made for Park Crescent, and then walked straight down
Portland Placc, so as to try and catch a glimpse of his _inamorata_.
He was blessed and yet annoyed, for Maude was at one of the windows with
a book in her hand, apparently reading, but really looking down at
Luigi, the Italian, who was turning the handle of his baize-covered
chest in the most diligent manner, producing sweet sounds according to
taste, and smiling and bowing to the lady.
"Lucky brute!" muttered Charley, as he went by without venturing to
salute. For as he passed he saw a white packet drop from the window and
fall upon the pavement, where it burst like a shell, scattering bronze
discs in all directions, so that the organ-grinder had hard work to
collect them laden as he was, while the tune he played was broken up
into bits.
"Lucky brute!" sighed Charley Melton again, "allowed to stand upon the
edge of the pavement to gaze up at her, and then paid for so doing. Ah,
I'd better give it up. She won't bolt with me. I seem as if I can get
no help from Tom, and I cannot go there. Hang it all, I shall do
something desperate before I've done. She was yielding, but the game's
up now."
Poor Joby in the days which followed was far from happy, for his master
was a great deal away from home, and the dog was shut out often enough
from his rooms as well as from his confidence.
People said that Charley Melton, being crossed in love, was going to the
bad--taking to drink and gambling, and steadily gliding down the slide
up which there is no return; and certainly his habits seemed to indicate
this to be the case, so much so that Joby thought a good deal in his
dense, thick-brained fashion upon the problem that puzzled his head as
well as several wiser ones--a problem that he was to solve though for
himself when the due time came, for Joby could not make out his master.
Time glided on, and Charley Melton's case seemed to grow more and more
hopeless, while Maude appeared to be going melancholy mad, and passed a
great portion of her time gazing dreamily down at the purveyor of tunes
set afloat upon the air by the mechanical working of a large set of
bellows, and the opening and shutting by a toothed barrel of the mouths
of so many graduated pipes.
Everybody was miserable, so it appeared, saving Sir Grantley Wilters,
whose joy approached the weird in the peculiarity of its developments.
He took medicine by the bucketful, so his valet told Mr Robbins in
confidence, "and the way he talks about your young lady is wonderful."
It was wonderful, for in his amatory madness he chuckled and chattered
and praised the lady's charms, and he even went so far at times as to
sing snatches of love songs in a voice that suggested the performances
of a mad--or cracked--clarionet in a hilarious fit, during which it was
suffering from a dry reed.
Love ruled the day at Portland Place, and Sir Grantley came and made it
in the drawing-room as often as he liked, while when she could escape to
the balcony, Maude stood and listened to the strains of _Trovatore_,
and, "poor dear, seemed to get wuss and wuss."
The last was cook's remark, and it was received with a feminine chorus
of "Ah's!"
"Oh, that wretched Italian, why does he persist in coming here?" cried
her ladyship one day. "Maude, you'll drive me mad if you keep on
encouraging him so."
Maude looked at her mother dreamily and said nothing, but the next time
the man came she wrapped some coppers in a piece of paper, and dropped
them out, to be caught deftly in the soft felt hat.
"Poor fellow," she sighed, "it may make him happy."
"Ah, bella signora," cried Luigi in mellifluous tones, and he ground,
and smiled, and showed his white teeth till the lady retired.
But if there was love-making in Portland Place there was despair in Duke
Street, human and canine, for Joby more than once proved himself to be a
terrible nuisance at the chambers by uttering low snuffling whines upon
the stairs and landings, which, being interpreted, meant, "Why doesn't
master come home?" But by degrees he smothered his feelings on finding
that an open avowal of his trouble only resulted in boots, boot-jacks,
empty soda-water bottles, and other missiles being flung at him from
open doors, while he was reviled as being a beast.
His retort upon receiving such forcible salutations was very often a
display of his teeth, and so threatening an action in the direction of
legs that he generally caused his assailants to beat a retreat; but at
last he performed the same strategic evolution himself, consequent upon
having to deal with the unknown. In fact, science conquered him. He
stood shot, and dodged them bravely. So clever was he indeed upon this
point, that it was almost impossible to hit him with hair-brush, boot,
or lump of coal; but one day an angry occupant of the chambers, upon
hearing a very long-drawn howl, opened his door suddenly and hurled a
bottle at the dog.
It was this bottle which puzzled Joby, for instead of being empty, it
was full of the water known as soda, highly charged with gas by one
Schweppe, and though it missed the dog, it struck upon a partly filled
coal-scuttle, and exploded with such violence, and so great a scattering
of fragments, that for two days Joby preferred to sleep in the park, and
had a very narrow escape from a dog-stealer, who tried every
blandishment he knew to get the animal to follow him, but without
effect.
Sometimes he would go and hang about the great house in Portland Place,
but there was no admission. Attempts to glide past or between the legs
of the servants dismally failed; but he had a look or two at Lord
Barmouth, and followed him when he went out, giving sundry sniffs at his
pocket, and more than once coming in for a bone. But this was very
exceptional, and Joby's was just now a very unsatisfactory and useless
life.
His lordship swore a little softly and in private about the organ, but
ceased as he saw that his daughter took a little interest in the music.
"But it's doosed bad taste, Tom, doosed bad taste, my boy; and dear me,
how I do long for a glass of port."
"Yes, and you'll have to long, governor."
"Yes, my boy. Seen Charley Melton lately?"
"Yes, looking as if he were going to be hung."
"Did he though, my boy? What did you say to him?"
"Told him he was a fool."
"Oh, Tom, my boy, you shouldn't have done that. I hope he don't think
that I'm behaving badly to him. I'd go and see him, but her ladyship
would be sure to know. Be civil to him, my boy, for my sake. His
father was such an old friend."
"Humph, don't seem like it," growled Tom.
"But why did you call him a fool, Tom?"
"For not making a bolt of it with Maudey."
"Oh, no--no--no--no, my boy, that would be very wrong. But what did he
say?"
"Nothing. Shook his head and walked off."
"Yes, yes. Quite right, my boy, quite right. Charley Melton would not
do anything to degrade our Maudey like that."
"Well, I would if I had a chance," said Tom, "and if I hadn't I'd make
one."