"Nonsense," exclaimed the marquise. 

 Miss Redmond played a few bars of the tune Sabron had hummed and which more than once had soothed Pitchouné, and which, did she know, Sabron was actually humming at that moment. 

 "I am rather disappointed," said the young girl, "but if we find it is a matter of life and death, ma tante, we will forgive him?" 

 The Marquise d'Esclignac had invited the Count de Sabron because she had been asked to do so by his colonel, who was an old and valued friend. She had other plans for her niece. 

 "I feel, my dear," she answered her now, "quite safe in promising that if it is a question of life and death we shall forgive him. I shall see his colonel to-morrow and ask him pointblank." 

 Miss Redmond rose from the piano and came over to her aunt, for dinner had been announced. 

 "Well, what do you think," she slipped her hand in her aunt's arm, "really, what do you think could be the reason?" 

 "Please don't ask me," exclaimed the Marquise d'Esclignac impatiently.  "The reasons for young men's caprices are sometimes just as well not inquired into." 

 If Sabron, smoking in his bachelor quarters, lonely and disappointed, watching with an extraordinary fidelity by his "sick friend," could have seen the two ladies at their grand solitary dinner, his unfilled place between them, he might have felt the picture charming enough to have added to his collection. 

 CHAPTER IV 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 

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