The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

252 THE FOOT OF TIME
in the girl's lap which supported it, was sipping
some brown concoction. It smelled good—beefy,
fatless. Bruno loathed fat, as all sensible dogs do.
Ugh! a beastly smell smote his sensitive nasal organ.
It came from that thimbleful of light brown rubbish.
What filth humans drank when they were
ill! Bruno remembered a certain tramp, so offending
him by the smell of it, that, noticing the fellow
needed support, he gave it him with a flying
push right down the hill. The evil smeller never
passed their way again. Now that was better.
Water. Bruno knew water—knew it by name,
too. He had been airsick and was thirsty. He could
do with some, too. So he let out a request, and
Bruce told Edith what the animal wanted. Bruno
was given some. He drank it from Bruce's cap, but
had to hurry, the drinking fountain being porous.
"Why didn't you leave me here to die?" enquired
a muffled voice.
"Darling, I couldn't. I love you. I want you,
my dearest. I've been horrid—I see it all now,
Bruce dear. My husband, I want you."
It was really getting too bad, no respectable
hound could be expected to take all this sitting
down. The dog gave a low murmur. "That means
he's hungry. Can you give him anything?"
Newspaper covering a juicy bone saw the light
of day. This was Clare's doing, smuggled into the
suggestive pockets of the flying coat. "You'll need
that, old boy," Edith told him. "You've got some
work to do, the stoutest job to which you ever
put that back of yours." Then she kissed him on
THE FOOT OF TIME 253
the top of his head, just like Clare, his mistress, did.
Well, now they were beginning to talk sense. No
they couldn't keep sane for two consecutive
minutes together—they were at it again. Bruno
yawned.
Bruce was whispering something to the girl, but
his voice was growing in strength all the time.
"Darling, I've another confession to make to you.
Perhaps when you know it you'll leave me here."
"Oh, dear!" mocked Edith. "Well, and what
have you been doing now, sweetheart mine?"
"I never gave you up for a single moment," Bruce
told her. "I gave your funny old stick-in-the-mud
Dad a promise, and I make it a practice never to
break those sort of things, but I was resolved to
find some way round the corner. Nothing could
ever stop me marrying you. I was meant to from
the beginning, though I really thought I was
through yesterday and to-day."
Bruno turned his head away in disgust. Utterly
hopeless! He was growing disappointed in his master.
He thought men were made of sterner stuff,
but Edith's curt command as he moved off gave him
no reason to change his mind where women were
concerned, at any rate. Bruno supposed it was a
case of the modern girl again.
"Bruno, come here. Do you hear me? Come
here at once!"
Well, there was some sense, some character behind
that tone. It reminded him of the old woman
whose clothes carried the same smell as this girl's.
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