Afterwards she heard a scratching at the door. A maid had been sent to her, but she had dismissed her, saying that she would manage for herself. She went to the door and found outside it the shaggy, square dog. He walked into her room, sniffed for a time at the bed, pricked up his ears at the noise that the fire made, listened to the sound of the rain, at last sat down in a distant corner with one leg stretched at right angles to his body and watched her. She was indignant with herself for the softness in her heart that his company brought to her. CHAPTER XI RODDY IS MASTER "I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified, Who knows but the world may end to-night?" ROBERT BROWNING. I Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had never regarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met, and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he _was_ different.--"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "can find amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make 'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't like anyone." Now, however, for the first time in his life he would have been glad of help from someone who knew a little about the motive of human beings. He was worried, distressed, perplexed; slowly his temper was rising--a temper roused by his irritation at not being able to deal with the situation. It was not his way to ask for help from anyone and he always had all the inarticulate self-confidence of the healthy Englishman, but now, as the days crept towards Christmas he was increasingly aware that something must soon happen to prevent his patience giving away. He might as well not be married to Rachel at all--and that was an intolerable position for him as husband, as lover, as master of his house. Beyond doubt, he knew Rachel less now than he had known her when he married her. Her very kindness to him, her strange alternations of silence and affection perplexed him; for a long time he had told himself that he knew that she did not love him and that he must make companionship do, but ever since that quarrel about Nita Raseley the division between them had grown wider and wider. Because he loved her he had been very patient with her--very patient for Roddy, who had always had what he wanted and shown temper if he were refused. But Roddy's character was of a very real simplicity. The men and women and animals whom he had known had also been, for the most part, of a simple character and, in all his life, there had only been one horse and two women who had been too much for him, and even these, at the last, he had beaten by temper and dogged determination. Rachel was utterly beyond him. The strange way that she had of suddenly becoming quite another woman baffled him; had he only not loved her he was sure that it would have been easier, much easier.