"Do just open the gate, anyway--_please_!" Trenby hesitated.
"Well--" He yielded unwillingly, but Nan's eyes were rather difficult to resist when they appealed.

"Open the gate, then, Denman." He stood close behind her when the gate was opened, watching the hounds narrowly, and now and again uttering an imperative, "Down, Victor! Get down, Marquis!" when one or other of the great beasts playfully leapt up against Nan's side, pawing at her in friendly fashion.

Meanwhile Denman had quietly disappeared, and when he returned he carried a long-lashed hunting-crop in his hand.
Nan was smoothing first one tan head, then another, receiving eager caresses from rough, pink tongues in return, and insensibly she had moved step by step further into the yard to reach this or that hound as it caught her attention.
"Come back!" called Trenby hastily.

"Don't go any further." Perhaps the wind carried his voice away from her, or perhaps she was so preoccupied with the hounds that the meaning of his words hardly penetrated her mind.

Whichever it may have been, with a low cry of, "Oh, you beauty!" she stepped quickly towards Vengeance, one of the best hounds in the pack, a fierce-looking beast with a handsome head and sullen month, who had been standing apart, showing no disposition to join the clamorous, slobbering throng at the gate.
His hackles rose at Nan's sudden movement towards him, and as she stretched out her hand to stroke him the sulky head lifted with a thunderous growl.