第17章

"Really? Where? I thought they only did that to the dear horses.Oh, what a pretty laugh you have! It's so pleasant to hear anyone laugh, in these days.""I thought no one did anything else! I mean, what else can you do, except die, don't you know?""I think that's rather a gloomy view," said the old lady placidly.But about your neighbour.What is his name?""Lavender.But I call him Don Pickwixote.""Dear me, do you indeed? Have you noticed anything very eccentric about him?""That depends on what you call eccentric.Wearing a nightshirt, for instance? I don't know what your standard is, you see."The old lady was about to reply when a voice from the adjoining garden was heard saying:

"Blink! Don't touch that charming mooncat!""Hush!" murmured the young lady; and seizing her visitor's arm, she drew her vigorously beneath the acacia tree.Sheltered from observation by those thick and delicate branches, they stooped, and applying their eyes to holes in the privet hedge, could see a very little cat, silvery-fawn in colour and far advanced in kittens, holding up its paw exactly like a dog, and gazing with sherry-coloured eyes at Mr.Lavender, who stood in the middle of his lawn, with Blink behind him.

"If you see me going to laugh," whispered the young lady, "pinch me hard.""Moon-cat," repeated Mr.Lavender, "where have you come from? And what do you want, holding up your paw like that? What curious little noises you make, duckie!" The cat, indeed, was uttering sounds rather like a duck.It came closer to Mr.Lavender, circled his legs, drubbed itself against Blink's chest, while its tapered tail, barred with silver, brushed her mouth.

"This is extraordinary," they heard Mr.Lavender say; "I would stroke it if I wasn't so stiff.How nice of you little moon-cat to be friendly to my play-girl! For what is there in all the world so pleasant to see as friendliness between a dog and cat!"At those words the old lady, who was a great lover of animals, was so affected that she pinched the young lady by mistake.

"Not yet!" whispered the latter in some agony."Listen!""Moon-cat," Mr.Lavender was saying, "Arcadia is in your golden eyes.

You have come, no doubt, to show us how far we have strayed away from it." And too stiff to reach the cat by bending, Mr.Lavender let himself slowly down till he could sit."Pan is dead," he said, as he arrived on the grass and crossed his feet, "and Christ is not alive.Moon-cat!"The little cat had put its head into his hand, while Blink was thrusting her nose into his mouth.

"I'm going to sneeze!" whispered the old lady, strangely affected.

"Pull your upper lip down hard, like the German Empress, and count nine!"murmured the young.

While the old lady was doing this Mr.Lavender had again begun to speak.

"Life is now nothing but explosions.Gentleness has vanished, and beauty is a dream.When you have your kittens, moon-cat, bring them up in amity, to love milk, dogs, and the sun."The moon-cat, who had now reached his shoulder, brushed the tip of her tail across his loose right eyebrow, while Blink's jealous tongue avidly licked his high left cheekbone.With one hand Mr.Lavender was cuddling the cat's head, with the other twiddling Blink's forelock, and the watchers could see his eyes shining, and his white hair standing up all ruffled.

"Isn't it sweet?" murmured the old lady.

"Now pinch me!" whispered the young: Lower, harder! Oo!""Ah! moon-cat," went on Mr.Lavender, "come and live with us.You shall have your kittens in the bathroom, and forget this age of blood and iron."Both the old lady and the young were removing moisture from their eyes when, the voice of Mr.Lavender, very changed, recalled them to their vigil.His face had become strained and troubled.

"Never," he was saying, "will we admit that doctrine of our common enemies.Might is not right gentlemen those who take the sword shall perish by the sword.With blood and iron we will ourselves stamp out this noxious breed.No stone shall be left standing, and no babe sleeping in that abandoned country.We will restore the tide of humanity, if we have to wade through rivers of blood across mountains of iron.""Whom is he calling gentlemen?" whispered the old lady.

But Blink, by anxiously licking Mr.Lavender's lips, had produced a silence in which the young-lady did not dare reply.The sound of the little cat's purring broke the hush.

"Down, Blink, down!" said Mr.Lavender.

Watch this little moon-cat and her perfect manners! We may all learn from her how not to be crude.See the light shining through her pretty ears!"The little cat, who had seen a bird, had left Mr.Lavender's shoulder, and was now crouching and moving the tip of its tail from side to side.

"She would like a bird inside her; but let us rather go and find her some milk instead," said Mr.Lavender, and he began to rise.

"Do you know, I think he's quite sane, whispered the old lady, "except, perhaps, at intervals.What do you?""Glorious print!" cried Mr.Lavender suddenly, for a journal had fallen from his pocket, and the sight of it lying there, out of his reach, excited him."Glorious print! I can read you even from here.When the enemy of mankind uses the word God he commits blasphemy! How different from us!" And raising his eyes from the journal Mr.Lavender fastened them, as it seemed to his anxious listeners, on the tree which sheltered them."Yes! Those unseen presences, who search out the workings of our heart, know that even the most Jingo among us can say, 'I am not as they are!' Come, mooncat!"So murmuring, he turned and moved towards the house, clucking with his tongue, and followed by Blink.

"Did he mean us?" said the old lady nervously.

"No; that was one of his intervals.He's not mad; he's just crazy.""Is there any difference, my dear?"

"Why, we're all crazy about something, you know; it's only a question of what.""But what is his what?"

"He's got a message.They're in the air, you know.""I haven't come across them," said the old lady."I fear I live a very quiet life--except for picking over sphagnum moss.""Oh, well! There's no hurry."

"Well, I shall tell my nephew what I've seen," said the old lady."Good-bye."

"Good-bye," responded the young; and, picking up her yellow book, she got back into the hammock and relighted her cigarette.