He obeyed; but his claw caught in the lace, and away it ripped from the shoulder.
“Oh, darling, you 've ruined my beautiful jacket!”
Constable wagged his tail, and came up to be petted. A man would have confounded himself in apologies, and made matters worse. In such a circumstance the way of the dog may be recommended.
Stella rang the bell. The maid entered. Her Serene High-and-Mightiness the nurse was summoned. Dismay reigned in the sea-chamber. The dressing and undressing of Stellamaris was a tragic matter.
“If it 's not mended before Mr. Risca comes, my heart will break,” she said.
The maid took the dressing-jacket and the torn lace down-stairs. Inspecting them, she found the damage not irreparable. The rents might be temporarily concealed from the unseeing eyes of man. But it would take time. She was busy, in the midst of some work for her mistress. Human nature asserting itself, she dratted Constable. On her way to her room she glanced out of a window that overlooked the lawn. There, in the May sunshine, sat Unity, hemming dusters. Now, Unity was made for higher things of the needle than dusters. She had a genius for needlework. The maid knew it. In a few moments, therefore, Unity had exchanged the dull duster for the exquisite and thrilling garment, warm from the sweet body of the Lady of Mystery herself. The maid brought the necessary battery of implements with which such delicate repairs are executed, and left an enraptured orphan on a rustic bench.
Unity set to work. The mending of torn lace is a ticklish affair under the most prosaic of conditions: when goddesses and fairy-princesses and Stellamarises are mixed up in it, the occupation absorbs mind and soul. Unity's first awakening to the fact of an outside world was effected by a huge, grayish blue head thrust between her face and her needle. It was Constable, who had been let loose for his morning frisk. She pushed him away. Even the most majestic of Great Danes is moist about the jowl. Suppose he dribbled on the sacred vesture! Marrow-freezing possibility! She held his head at arm's length, and bade him begone. But Constable broke through her puny restraint and sniffed at the dressing-jacket. He sniffed at it in so insistent and truculent a manner that Unity grew frightened. She held the dressing-jacket high in the air.