wed
it until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat turned
sharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw. The tail
moved slightly in reply, and Smoke changed paws and tapped it again. The
dog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and the cat fell to
patting it briskly with both paws. Flame still lay motionless.

This puzzled and bored the cat, and it went round and stared hard into
its friend's face to see what was the matter. Perhaps some inarticulate
message flashed from the dog's eyes into its own little brain, making it
understand that the program for the night had better not begin with
play. Perhaps it only realized that its friend was immovable. But,
whatever the reason, its usual persistence thenceforward deserted it,
and it made no further attempts at persuasion. Smoke yielded at once to
the dog's mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash.

But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose; it
only used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy and
furious moments and began to stare about the room. Its thoughts wandered
absurdly. It peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy corners; at
empty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward positions for
whole minutes together. Then it turned sharply and stared with a sudden
signal of intelligence at the dog, and Flame at once rose somewhat
stiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and restlessly to and
fro about the floor. Smoke followed him, padding quietly at his heels.
Between them they made what seemed to be a deliberate search of the
room.

And, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of the
performance over the top of his book, yet making no effort to interfere,
it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a faint distress
betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the stirrings of a
vague excitement.

He observed them closely. The fog was thick in the air, and the tobacco
smoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the far end
stood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging clouds under
the ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the lamplight only
reached to a level of five feet from the floor, above which came layers
of comparative darkness, so that the room appeared twice as lofty as it
actually was. By means of the lamp and the fire, however, the carpet was
everywhere clearly visible.

The a