Gladys, the cat, walked in, gently flourishing her tail, hesitated, looked around with narrowing green-jewelled eyes, and, ignoring the whispered invitation and the outstretched hand, leaped lightly to a chair and settled down on a silken cushion, paws and tail folded under her jet-black body.

Valerie reproached her in a whisper, reminding her of past caresses and attentions, but the cat only blinked at her pleasantly.

On a low revolving stand at Valerie’s elbow lay a large lump of green modelling wax.  This wax Neville sometimes used to fashion, with his facile hands, little figures sketched from his models.  These he arranged in groups as though to verify the composition on the canvas before him, and this work and the pliant material which he employed had for her a particular and never-flagging interest.  And now, without thinking, purely instinctively, she leaned forward and laid her hand caressingly on the lump of wax.  There was something about the yielding, velvety texture that fascinated her, as though in her slim fingers some delicate nerves were responding to the pleasure of contact.

For a while she moulded little cubes and pyramids, pinched out bread-crumb chickens and pigs and cats.

“What do you think of this little wax kitten, Gladys?” she whispered, holding it up for the cat’s inspection.  Gladys regarded it without interest and resumed her pleasant contemplation of space.

Valerie, elbows on knees, seated at the revolving stool with all the naive absorption of a child constructing mud pies, began to make out of the fascinating green wax an image of Gladys dozing.

Time fled away in the studio; intent, absorbed, she pinched little morsels of wax from the lump and pushed them into place with a snowy, pink-tipped thumb, or with the delicate nail of her forefinger removed superfluous material.

Stepping noiselessly so not to disturb Neville she made frequent journeys around to the other side of the cat, sometimes passing sensitive fingers over silky feline contours, which, research inspired a loud purring.

As she worked sometimes she talked under her breath to herself, to Gladys, to Neville: 

“I am making a perfectly good cat, Valerie,” she whispered.  “Gladys, aren’t you a little bit flattered?  I suppose you think it’s honour enough to belong to that man up there on the scaffolding.  I imagine it is; he is a very wonderful man, Gladys, very high above us in intellect as he is in body.  He doesn’t pay very much attention to you and me down here on the floor; he’s just satisfied to own us and be amiable to us when he thinks about us.