The Fighting Chance | Page 4

him to the
rumble, but the dog leaped to the front.
“I don’t mind,” said the girl. “Let him sit here between us. And you
might occupy yourself by pulling some of those burrs from his ears--if

you will?”
“Of course I will. Look up here, puppy! No! Don’t try to lick my face,
for that is bad manners. Demonstrations are odious, as the poet says.”
“It’s always bad manners, isn’t it?” asked Miss Landis.
“What? Being affectionate?”
“Yes, and admitting it.”
“I believe it is. Do you hear that--Sagamore? But never mind; I’ll break
the rules some day when we’re alone.”
The dog laid one paw on Siward’s knee, looking him wistfully in the
eyes.
“More demonstrations,” observed the girl. “Mr. Siward! You are
hugging him! This amounts to a dual conspiracy in bad manners.”
“Awfully glad to admit you to the conspiracy,” he said. “There’s one
vacancy--if you are eligible.”
“I am; I was discovered recently kissing my saddle-mare.”
“That settles it! Sagamore, give the young lady the grip.”
Sylvia Landis glanced at the dog, then impulsively shifting the whip to
her left hand, held out the right. And very gravely the Sagamore pup
laid one paw in her dainty white gloved palm.
“You darling!” murmured the girl, resuming her whip.
“I notice,” observed Siward, “that you are perfectly qualified for
membership in our association for the promotion of bad manners. In
fact I should suggest you for the presidency--”
“I suppose you think all sorts of things because I gushed over that dog.”

“Of course I do.”
“Well you need not,” she rejoined, delicate nose up-tilted. “I never
kissed a baby in all my life--and never mean to. Which is probably
more than you can say.”
“Yes, its more than I can say.
“That admission elects you president,” she concluded. But after a
moment’s silent driving she turned partly toward him with mock
seriousness: “Is it not horridly unnatural in me to feel that way about
babies? And about people, too; I simply cannot endure demonstrations.
As for dogs and horses--well, I’ve admitted how I behave; and, being
so shamelessly affectionate by disposition, why can’t I be nice to
babies? I’ve a hazy but dreadful notion that there’s something wrong
about me, Mr. Siward.”
He scrutinised the pretty features, anxiously; “I can’t see it,” he said.
“But I mean it--almost seriously. I don’t want to be so aloof, but--I
don’t like to touch other people. It is rather horrid of me I suppose to be
like those silky, plumy, luxurious Angora cats who never are civil to
you and who always jump out of your arms at the first opportunity.”
He laughed--and there was malice in his eyes, but he did not know her
well enough to pursue the subject through so easy an opening.
It had occurred to her, too, that her simile might invite elaboration, and
she sensed the laugh in his silence, and liked him for remaining silent
where he might easily have been wittily otherwise.
This set her so much at ease, left her so confident, that they were on
terms of gayest understanding presently, she gossiping about the guests
at Shotover House, outlining the diversions planned for the two weeks
before them.
“But we shall see little of one another; you will be shooting most of the
time,” she said--with the very faintest hint of challenge--too delicate,

too impersonal to savour of coquetry. But the germ of it was there.
“Do you shoot?”
“Yes; why?”
“I am reconciled to the shooting, then.”
“Oh, that is awfully civil of you. Sometimes I’d rather play Bridge.”
“So should I--sometimes.”
“I’ll remember that, Mr. Siward; and when all the men are waiting for
you to start out after grouse perhaps I may take that moment to whisper:
‘May I play?’”
He laughed.
“You mean that you really would stay and play double dummy when
every other living man will be off to the coverts? Double dummy--to
improve my game?”
“Certainly! I need improvement.”
“Then there is something wrong with you, too, Mr. Siward.”
She laughed and started to flick her whip, but at her first motion the
horse gave trouble.
“The bit doesn’t fit,” observed Siward.
“You are perfectly right,” she returned, surprised. “I ought to have
remembered; it is shameful to drive a horse improperly bitted.” And,
after a moment: “You are considerate toward animals; it is good in a
man.”
“Oh, it’s no merit. When animals are uncomfortable it worries me. It’s
one sort of selfishness, you see.”

“What nonsense,” she said; and her smile was very friendly. “Why
doesn’t a nice man ever admit he’s nice when told so?”
It seems they had advanced that far. For she was beginning to find this
young man not only safe but promising; she had met nobody recently
half