Part 39

"All right," interrupted Brown, and turned toward the vision of loveliness and distress which was now standing on the top of her own back fence holding fast to a wistaria trellis and flattering Clarence with low and honeyed appeals.

The cat, however, was either too stupid or too confused to respond; he gazed blankly at his mistress, and when Brown began furtively edging his way toward him Clarence arose, stood a second in alert indecision, then began to back away.

"We've got him between us!" called out Brown. "If you'll stand ready to seize him when I drive him----"

There was a wild scurry, a rush, a leap, frantic clawing for foothold.

"Now, Miss Betty! Quick!" cried Brown. "Don't let him pass you."

She spread her skirts, but the shameless Clarence rushed headlong between the most delicately ornamental pair of ankles in Manhattan.

"Oh-h!" cried the girl in soft despair, and made a futile clutch; but she could not arrest the flight of Clarence, she merely upset him, turning him for an instant into a furry pinwheel, whirling through mid-air, landing in her yard, rebounding like a rubber ball, and disappearing, with one flying leap, into a narrow opening in the basement masonry.

"Where is he?" asked Brown, precariously balanced on the next fence.

"Do you know," she said, "this is becoming positively ghastly. He's bolted into our cellar."

"Why, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Brown. "All you have to do is to go inside, descend to the cellar, and light the gas."

"There's no gas."

"You have electric light?"

"Yes, but it's turned off at the main office. The house is closed for the summer, you know."

Brown, balancing cautiously, walked the intervening fence like an amateur on a tightrope.

Her pretty hat was a trifle on one side; her cheeks brilliant with excitement and anxiety. Utterly oblivious of herself and of appearances in her increasing solicitude for the adored Clarence, she sat the fence, cross saddle, balancing with one hand and pointing with the other to the barred ventilator into which Clarence had darted.

A wisp of sunny hair blew across her crimson cheek; slender, active, excitedly unconscious of self, she seemed like some eager, adorable little gamin perched there, intent on mischief.

"If you'll drop into our yard," she said, "and place that soap box against the ventilator, Clarence can't get out that way!"

It was done before she finished the request. She disengaged herself from the fencetop, swung over, hung an instant, and dropped into a soft flower bed.

Breathing fast, disheveled, they confronted one another on the grass. His blue suit of serge was smeared with whitewash; her gown was a sight. She felt for her hat instinctively, repinned it at hazard, looked at her gloves, and began to realize what she had done.

"I--I couldn't help it," she faltered; "I couldn't leave Clarence in a city of five m-million strangers--all alone--terrified out of his senses-- could I? I had rather--rather be thought--anything than be c-cruel to a helpless animal."

Brown dared not trust himself to answer. She was too beautiful and his emotion was too deep. So he bent over and attempted to dust his garments with the flat of his hand.

"I am so sorry," she said in a low voice. "Are your clothes quite ruined?"

"Oh, I don't mind," he protested happily, "I really don't mind a bit. If you'll only let me help you corner that infern--that unfortunate cat I shall be perfectly happy."

She said, with heightened color: "It is exceedingly nice of you to say so.... I--I don't quite know--what do you think we had better do?"

"Suppose," he said, "you go into the basement, unlock the cellar door and call. He can't bolt this way."

She nodded and entered the house. A few moments later he heard her calling, so persuasively that it was all he could do not to run to her, and why on earth that cat didn't he never could understand.

BETTY

In Which the Remorseless and Inexorable Results of Psychical Research Are Revealed to the Very Young