"Don't you hear the dog-wood yapping, dear?... Can't you just imagine those old-fashioned pop-guns popping?... Nothing to break the silences save the shriek of ten thousand auto sirens.... No one around but people--millions of 'em! Don't it make you think of a little old home in my great new West, where we're to go one day--so like and yet so different?... And Friend Equus is to go along, my heart, all the more appreciative after his clash with the tame.... Yes, and you too, Police Pup--if Shepherd Tom can be persuaded to let you resign from the Force. He just may be willing after to-day's mis-delivered lunch.
"Then list to the Nubian roar--much more like a lion it sounds than the rumble of city streets.... List the whisper of poplars four--there would be four, except that two have been white-circled into stumps.... Count eighteen--twelve.... Take heart and delve.... Above the crock the block will rock.... That block did rock--did rock--and rock----"
He leaned low; listened. Jane's gentle, even breathing reported her asleep. He was more pleased than by any of the wonderful things she had done while awake--even than by that voluntary kiss, so precious as compared with her involuntary first. She did really trust him and rest in his protectorate, else could she never have been lulled by his murmurings into unconsciousness. She must indeed have been spent, when the growls and spasmodic foot work of the live fur rug did not disturb her. Kicko, evidently, had lapsed into dog dreams of chases and fights.
The moon must be rising. Into the block-house was shed a weird, indirect light. Then more and more direct it grew until, over the top of one wall, appeared a large, round inverted bowl of a candle-power that dimmed the kilowatt signs along the Gay Way.
Earlier in the evening, when he had spoken of waiting for darkness, under cover of which to attempt an escape afoot, Pape might have complained at the illumination of the sky. Now he beamed back at the moon. And his complacency waxed with her light, although he realized that bold young Dawn would be up to flirt with the pale night queen long before her departure; that any attempt to escape from the park would not be blanketed that night.