When Mr. Pendyce realised that his son had not come, he went to the door
and held it open.
"Be good enough to take John out, Margery," he said. "John!"
The spaniel John, seeing what lay before him, rolled over on his back.
Mrs. Pendyce fixed her eyes on her husband, and in those eyes she put
all the words which the nature of a lady did not suffer her to speak.
'I claim to be here. Let me stay; it is my right. Don't send me away.'
So her eyes spoke, and so those of the spaniel John, lying on his back,
in which attitude he knew that he was hard to move.
Mr. Pendyce turned him over with his foot.
"Get up, John! Be good enough to take John out, Margery."
Mrs. Pendyce flushed, but did not move.
"John," said Mr. Pendyce, "go with your mistress." The spaniel John
fluttered a drooping tail. Mr. Pendyce pressed his foot to it.
"This is not a subject for women."
Mrs. Pendyce bent down.
"Come, John," she said. The spaniel John, showing the whites of his
eyes, and trying to back through his collar, was assisted from the room.
Mr. Pendyce closed the door behind them.
"Have a glass of port, Vigil; it's the '47. My father laid it down in
'56, the year before he died. Can't drink it myself--I've had to put
down two hogsheads of the Jubilee wine. Paramor, fill your glass.
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