When the limousine started slowly out of the courtyard before Hotel Bellevue, and he could see only the retreating back of old Jean, the Little Corporal was afraid. He began wriggling and whimpering to be let down, but the actress had a way with her that none could resist; for had she not coaxed and wheedled two continents, causing millions to laugh or weep as she willed? And so it was with Nap. She snuggled him in her warm coat, and covered his hairy face with kisses. She drew his shining ears through her fingers in that coaxing way that dog-lovers understand, and dogs love. She squeezed his paws between her small gloved hands, and laughed and smiled at him, and in five minutes they were the best of friends.
It must not be imagined that any woman could have picked up the Airedale and carried him off in this unceremonious manner, and so completely won his confidence. But the Little Corporal at once felt the great lady loved him. In fact, she had fallen desperately in love with him at sight, and being a true little gallant himself, he could not but reciprocate her love.
If he occasionally sat down thoughtfully on his stump of a tail and tried hard to think what it was that he missed, if at such times a strange tugging at his impulsive heart caused a mournful look to overspread his quizzical little face, there was no one to tell him that he missed his first love, old Jean.
But the new life at the château was so varied and full of interest, and his mistress and her servants petted him so freely that in a day or two the stump of a tail was wagging away just as it had done at the Hotel Bellevue.
There was no part of the château that was too good for Pierre, as the actress at once rechristened him—not even her own boudoir.
"Pierre!" she would cry, clapping her hands together the first thing in the morning when she awoke. The Airedale, that was sleeping on a beautiful moquette rug at the foot of the bed, or sometimes even on the bed itself, would scramble up to her face. Then there would be a real rough-and-tumble love feast.
How scandalized the vast audience in Drury Lane, or Broadway would have been to see her hugging, kissing, and fondling a mere dog! But her private life was her own, and she did with it very much as she pleased. The public and the theatre managers might tyrannize over her as an actress, but here she was supreme and her word was law.
Marie, her special maid, was disgusted with the manners of her mistress's latest canine love. She complained of him most grievously when she was sure of secrecy, but she never dared so much as breathe a word against Pierre in his mistress's presence.
Pierre's feeling for Marie was one of contempt. With his keen intuition, he soon discovered that she was afraid of him. When he could catch her in an out-of-the-way corner he would back her up against the wall, and by growling prodigiously for so small a dog, and showing a double row of puppy teeth as sharp as needles, the roguish Pierre would scare poor Marie nearly into a fit.
When she had screamed and wept to his complete satisfaction, he would back away and laugh at her, not audibly, but nevertheless the laughter would run all over his hairy, alert face, and any dog-lover would have recognized it as the most mirthful of dog laughter.
After one of these tragic scares Marie confided to Louis Laporte, the chauffeur, that the "little devil" would be the death of her. Louis, who was fond of Marie, kissed away her tears, and said Pierre was the most impudent piece of dog meat that had ever come to the château.
If I were to enumerate all the notable people whose acquaintance Pierre made during his six-months' stay at the château, it would weary my reader, but suffice it to say that they were legion.
Prime ministers, ambassadors, dramatists, poets, and actors,—in short, all the great people who came to the château had first to do homage to Madame's latest dog love; and of one accord, being very polite people, they pronounced him the most wonderful dog they had ever seen, although in secret afterwards some of them expressed themselves very freely to the contrary.
But none of these things ever came to the ears of either the actress or Pierre. If he did occasionally hear other things not intended for his keen cocked ears, he kept his own counsel and so kept out of trouble.
Early in the summer—it was July by the calendar, but of course Pierre did not know that—he noted great excitement among the people at the château. They talked much louder, and more continuously than usual. Each morning when Laporte came with the mail there was a great scramble for the Paris papers. No matter how quiet or peaceful it might have been before the mail came, there was always pandemonium after that. Something was turning the château upside down. Dog that he was, Pierre understood this.
The strange excitement that the papers always brought would cause the men to clench their fists and grow red in the face and cry "Boche," or "La Guerre," while the women would weep and look miserable.
From all this, Pierre concluded in his dim dog way, that "Boche" was somebody or something very bad, and that La Guerre was also very bad.
He likewise noted that Laporte put on the strange clothes that young Jean, his former playfellow, always wore. He could tell these clothes by the tight-fitting leggings. He could not reach under these trousers and nip the legs as he could with the ordinary suit.
Most of the men who came to the château now wore these soldier suits and Pierre would go sniffing about their legs to see if by any chance one of them might be young Jean.
He liked them all, for they were sure to tumble him about when they were not in a hurry. There was also something strong and rough about them that he missed in his pampered life at the château.
Thus it was that Pierre noted the warcloud that hung over France.
Being a mere dog, he did not know that Liège had fallen, or that the Germans were sweeping across Belgium a million strong; that they were coming in five great armies marching abreast, a mighty tidal wave of bayonets. Even France did not realize their numbers then, but all knew that terrible times were ahead. The men and the women knew it and Pierre felt it in the air and saw it in their faces.