Ellen, returning later triumphantly with a taxi, held wide the door, a wide and loving smile across her plain face.
"You come too, Sir," said Jan Cuxson. "Do you heaps of good to ride an elephant!"
"I only wish I could, boy," said the man as he laid one hand on the shoulder of the son he loved, and the other on Leonie's head. "But I've much to do in that opium case, and I'm dining out, and shall read a bit when I get back----"
"And I'm dining out too, more's the nuisance, otherwise I could help. Sure to be awfully late as it's a farewell dinner to a fellow at the hospital----"
"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 passed 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."
"And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate homes."--_The Bible_.
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.