'Now, we'll introduce you—gradgilly,' announced Toby, stooping down and lifting with immense effort the large grey Persian that had been sleeping on the window-sill when they came in,' She held it with great difficulty in her arms and' hands, but in spite of her best efforts only a portion of it found actual support, the rest straggling away like a loosely stuffed bolster she could not encompass.
It was evidently accustomed to being dealt with thus in sections, for it continued to purr sleepily, blinking its large eyes with the usual cat-smile, and letting its head fall backwards as though it suddenly desired to examine the ceiling from an entirely fresh point of view. None of its real attention, of course, was given to the actual proceeding. It merely suffered the absurd affair—absent-mindedly and with condescension. Its whiskers moved gently.
'What's its name?' he asked kindly.
'Her name,' whispered Nixie.
'We call her Mrs. Tompkyns, because it's old now,' Toby explained, ignoring genders.
'After the head-gardener's gra'mother,' Nixie explained hastily in his ear; 'but we might change it to Uncle Paul in honour of you now, mightn't we?' 'Mrs. Uncle Paul,' corrected Jonah, looking on with slight disapproval, and anxious to get to the white mice and the squirrel.
'It would be a pity to change the name, I think,' Paul said, straightening himself up dizzily from the introduction, and watching the splendid creature fall upon its head from Toby's weakening grasp, and then march away with unperturbed dignity to its former throne upon the window-sill. 'I feel rather afraid of Mrs. Tompkyns,' he added; 'she's so very majestic.'
'Oh, you needn't be,' they cried in chorus. 'It's all put on, you know, that sort of grand manner. We knew her when she was a kitten.'
The object-lesson was not lost upon him. Of all creatures in the world, he reflected as he watched her, cats have the truest dignity. They absolutely refuse to be laughed at. No cat would ever betray its real self, yet here was he, a grown-up, intelligent man, vacillating, and on the verge already of hopeless capitulation.
'And what's the name of these persons?' he asked quickly, turning for safety to Nixie, who had her arms full of a writhing heap she had been diligently collecting from the corners of the room.
'Oh, that's only Mrs. Tompkyns' family,' exclaimed Jonah impatiently; 'the last family, I mean. She's had lots of others.'
'The last family before this was only two,' Nixie told him. 'We called them Ping and Pong. They live in the stables now. But these we call Pouf, Sambo, Spritey, Zezette, and Dumps—'
'And the next ones,' Toby broke in excitedly, 'we're going to call with the names on the engines when we go up to London to see the dentist.'
'Or the names of the Atlantic steamers wouldn't be bad,' said Paul.
'Not bad,' Jonah said, with lukewarm approval; 'only the engines would be much better.'
'There may not be any next ones,' opined Toby, emerging from beneath a sofa after a frantic, but vain, attempt to catch something alive.
Jonah snorted with contempt. 'Of course there will. They come in bunches all the time, just like grapes and chestnuts and things. Madmizelle told me so. There's no end to them. Don't they Uncle Paul?'
'I believe so,' said the authority appealed to extracting his finger with difficulty from the teeth and claws of several kittens.
There came a lull in the proceedings, the majority of the animals having escaped, and successfully concealed themselves among what Toby called 'the furchinur.' Paul was still following a prior train of reflection.
'Yes, cats are really rather wonderful creatures, he mused aloud in spite of himself, turning instinctively in the direction of Nixie. 'They possess a mysterious and superior kind of intelligence.'
For a moment it was exactly as if he had tapped his armour and said, 'Look! It's all sham!'
The child peered sharply up in his face. There was a sudden light in her eyes, and her lips were parted. He had not exactly expected her to answer, but somehow or other he was not surprised when she did. And the answer she made was just the kind of thing he knew she would say. He was annoyed with himself for having said so much.
'And they lead secret little lives somewhere else, and only let us see what they want us to see. I knew you understood really? She said it with an elfin smile that was certainly borrowed from moonlight on a mountain stream. With one fell swoop it caught him away into a world where age simply did not exist. His mind wavered deliciously. The singing in his heart was almost loud enough to be audible.
But he just saved himself. With a sudden movement he leaned forward and buried his face in the pie of kittens that nestled in her arms, letting them lose their paws for a moment in his beard. The kittens might understand, but at least they could not betray him by putting it into words. It was a narrower escape than he cared for.
'And these are the Chow puppies,' cried Jonah, breathless from a long chase after the sable muffs. 'We call them China and Japan.'
Paul welcomed the diversion. Their teeth were not nearly so sharp as the kittens', and they burrowed with their black noses into his sleeves. So thick was their fur that they seemed to have no bones at all; their dark eyes literally dripped laughter.
With an effort he put on a more sedate manner.
'You i got a lot of beasts,' he said.
'Animals,' Nixie corrected him. 'Only toads, rats, and hedgehogs are beasts. And, remember, if you're rude to an animal, as Mademoiselle Fleury was once, it only 'spises you—and then
'I beg their pardon,' he put in hurriedly; 'I quite understand, of course.'
'You see it's rather important, as they want to like you, and unless you respect them they can't, can they?' she finished earnestly.
'I do respect them, believe me, Nixie, and I appreciate their affection. Affection and respect must always go together.'
The children were wholly delighted. Paul had completely won their hearts from the very beginning. The parrot, the squirrel, and the white mice were all introduced in turn to him, and he heard sundry mysterious allusions to 'the owl in the stables,' 'Juliet and her two kids,' to say nothing of dogs, ponies, pigeons, and peacocks, that apparently dwelt in the regions of outer space, and were to be reserved for the morrow.
The performance was coming to an end. Paul was already congratulating himself upon having passed safely, if not with full credit, through a severe ordeal, when the door opened and a woman of about twenty-five, with a pleasant face full of character and intelligence, stood in the doorway. A torrent of French instantly broke loose on all sides. The woman started a little when she perceived that the children were not alone.
'Oh, Mademoiselle, this is Uncle Paul,' they cried, each in a different fashion. 'This is our Uncle Paul! He's just been introduced to the animals, and now he must be introduced to you.'
Paul shook hands with her, and the introduction passed off easily enough; the woman was charming, he saw at the first glimpse, and possessed of tact. She at once took his side and pretended to scold her charges for having plagued and bothered him so long. Evidently she was something more to them than a mere governess. The lassitude of his sister, no doubt, gave her rights and responsibilities.
But what impressed Paul when he was alone—for her simple remark that it was past bedtime was followed by sudden kisses and disappearance—was the remarkable change that her arrival had brought about in the room. It came to him with a definite little shock. It was more than significant, he felt.
And it was this: that the children, though obviously they loved her, treated her as some one] grown up and to be obeyed, whereas himself, he now realised, they had all along treated as one of themselves to whom they could be quite open and natural. His 'attitude' they had treated with respect, just as he had treated the attitude of the animals with respect, but at the same time