VIII

FINN IS ENLIGHTENED


Next morning courtesy demanded that Finn should accept Betty Murdoch's
invitation to accompany her on a rather long walk. She had bills to pay
and calls to make in the village. Finn went, of course, stalking
silently beside pretty, cheery Betty. But he made a poor companion, and
Betty even told the Master at luncheon that she thought Finn was not
very well, so dull and uninterested in anything he had appeared all the
morning.

"H'm! I suspect he misses Lady Desdemona," said the Master. "Puzzling
thing, that. I can't make out why they're not together."

The fact was, Finn found the nursing of his offended dignity a wearisome
task. It was all very well to rebuke Desdemona by ignoring her
existence; but could he be quite sure that she noticed his absence or
cared about it? And in any case, whether or not it affected her, it
certainly bored him very much. He missed greatly the companionship of
his mate, and not a bit the less because she had been so rude to him the
day before.

The upshot of it was that, after disposing of a good portion of the
dinner placed in his big dish at six o'clock that evening (in the little