Lord Elyn went in first. I followed. The study was, as Vernon had said,
a real workroom. There was little furniture in it, and what there was
was plain and serviceable. Near the one window, which looked out at the
back on to the backs of other houses, was a large writing-table covered
with documents, pamphlets, magazines, address-books, gum-bottles,
elastic bands, balls of string, a Remington typewriter, piles of paper
bands for fastening newspapers and manuscripts, etc. In the midst of
this ordered rummage stood a cabinet photograph of a man. I did not
examine it then, but I knew later that it was Arthur Gernham, the
notorious anti-vivisectionist. A few chairs, a thick Turkey carpet, and
two revolving bookcases completed the furniture. The walls were tinted
a dull red, and there were red curtains at the window. There were no
pictures or ornaments. On the mantelpiece stood a clock which struck
the quarter after six as we came in.
“Where’s the—oh, there he is!” said Lord Elyn.
The black spaniel was lying crouched upon the floor in a corner near
the window, a dark patch against the red of the curtain which touched
him. He had been tied by a piece of cord to the writing-table, but
had shrunk back, as if in an effort to escape, until he could go no
farther. Now he lay with his face turned towards the door, motionless,
staring. When we saw him he did not move. He only looked at us.
He only looked at us, I have said. Then why did Lord Elyn stop short
just inside the door, as if startled? Why did I feel an almost
invincible desire to get out of this room, even out of this house of
my friend? It must have been the violence of terror in the dog’s eyes
contrasted with the absolute stillness, the stillness as of death, of
his body. Yes, I think it must have been that which affected us. For in
violence there is always contained the suggestion of intense activity,
the suggestion of movement, and the dog’s eyes conveyed to me the
feeling that his soul was rushing from us, while his body lay there
before us against the red curtain like a carven thing.
“There he is!” Lord Elyn repeated in a low voice.
He looked at me and then at Vernon. I thought he was going out of the
room, and I am sure he wanted to do so; but he stood where he was in
silence and again looked towards the spaniel.
“Well, what do you think of him?” asked Vernon.
The sound of his voice perhaps made Lord Elyn conscious that we were
behaving somewhat absurdly, that we were almost huddling together, he
and I, beside the door. For he took a step—but only a step—forward, and
answered, with an evident effort to speak more naturally:
“Oh, he looks a good specimen. He’s well bred; I should say, well
bred—yes.”
Again he glanced at me as if questioning me. All this time the spaniel
did not move, but lay staring at us with eyes full of horror. His
stillness appalled me.
“And what do you think, Luttrell?” said Vernon.
It was with a difficulty that was extraordinary to me that I answered
him.
“You’ll have a lot of trouble with him,” I said.
“Why?” said Vernon quickly.
“Why? Why, he’s evidently a very nervous dog. I should think it’ll take
time to reconcile him with his new home and his new master.”
“Good God!” said Lord Elyn.
As I finished speaking the dog had suddenly howled again. Involuntarily
I stepped back.
Vernon laughed once more.
“Why, anybody would think you were afraid of him,” he said. “What’s the
matter?”
[Illustration: “POOR BEAST! POOR BEAST!”]