Part 4 (1/2)
”Well! See you in the morning! Good-bye, sweetheart, I won't forget the book, and just you make that lazy fellow show you everything!”
He bent and kissed Leonie as she lifted her face, which was an unheard-of thing for her to do, and watched her as, hugging the struggling dog, she ran down the steps and was lifted into the taxi by her companion.
With his foot on the step Jan hesitated, then turned and walked back to his father.
”I don't know why. Sir, but I do wish you'd come too,” he said slowly, looking at the man he loved with a love past the comprehension of the younger generation of the present day.
He put out his hand as he spoke and gripped the elder man's hard, then ran down the steps, jumped in beside Leonie, and turned to wave hilariously with her as they sped away to the Zoo.
The brain specialist went back thoughtfully to his room, and when he had closed the door stood for a long time looking out at the little garden with its one big tree.
”I wonder, I _wonder_,” he mused. ”I'd give a good deal to get at that ayah--well! why not?--I could start for----” He looked round suddenly, then laughed as he pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes. ”Funny! I thought someone opened the door.”
He moved to his desk and turned over his diary, showing blank page after blank page.
”Strange,” he muttered. ”There is nothing written down after to-day, not a single engagement. I must have entered them in some other book; very careless of me.”
CHAPTER VI
”And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate homes.”--_The Bible_.
”Gawd!”
Mrs. Henry Higgins called upon the Almighty in the vernacular of Seven Dials, sought gropingly for the members of her progeny who clutched her skirt, and fortunately kept her head.
”'Enery James--no! Gertrude Ellen--you've gotter better headpiece, jest yer slip along to the keeper an' tell _'im_ to look slippy and come along quick _h'and_ quiet!”
Gertrude Ellen, puffed up with pride at the pull she had had over her brother, slipped off, as her mother continued in a raucous whisper, ”Now if that young miss don't deserve a thorough good 'iding! I'd take the skin off yer if any of yer did such a fing, strite I would. Drat yer, keep stilt cawn't yer--you'll rouse the brute!”
She shook her skirts so that the half-dozen clinging children rattled like a bunch of keys, pushed her jet bonnet back from the s.h.i.+ny wrinkled forehead, and waited, her motherly heart aquake in spite of her drastic language.
Jan Cuxson was standing in front of the lions' cage at one end of the lion-house, talking to his old friend the keeper, under the impression that Leonie was close beside him; but she, having taken advantage of their conversation and a practically empty house, had slipped quietly away, climbed the barrier near the far window, and was _also_ holding conversation--with a tiger from Bengal.
The animal lay outstretched with his wonderful head close to the bars, and his unblinking opalescent gold-flecked eyes staring straight into the opalescent gold-flecked eyes of the child as she stood on tip-toe so that her face was almost on a level with that of the animal.
”_Poor_ tiger!” she was saying. ”I'm vewwy sowwy for you--I'm sure you're not so vewy, vewy wicked, an' if you will bend your head I will stwoke you behind the ear same as I did Kitty.”
Mrs. Henry Higgins gasped.
Holding on to one bar tightly just near the tiger's mouth so as to steady herself, Leonie stretched, and thrusting her hand inside began to rub the tiger's head quite forcibly behind the ear.
”Nice?” she inquired as the animal closed its eyes under the unexpected and unexperienced caress, then opening them lifted the beautiful head and yawned to the full capacity of the huge mouth, affording Leonie a front row view of the splendid ivories and pale pink tongue.
”Oh--h--h!” said she admiringly, standing flat and patting the nearest paw. ”I _do_ like you though you _do_ fwighten me when you walk so softly in my dweams--oh--h--h!”
She s.h.i.+vered with ecstasy as the tiger rolled on its back, displaying its soft white belly as it bit its hind foot with the abandon of a baby, then turned on its side, and leaping sideways to its feet, slunk off to the far corner of the miserable den, which is all a civilised country gives a wild animal in exchange for its jungle home.