Betty at once softened.  But all she said was:  “I would give anything for Mrs. Crofton to leave Beechfield, Janet.  Did you see Jack’s face?”

“Yes, and I do feel worried about it.  Yet one can’t do anything.”

“I suppose one can’t.  But it’s too bad of her.  I think her a horrid woman.  Jack is just a scalp to her.  I don’t mind her flirtation with Godfrey—­that’s much more reasonable!”

Then she had hurried off upstairs without waiting for an answer, and her step-mother, looking back, rather wondered that Betty had said that.

CHAPTER XIX

Two hours later Janet Tosswill, after having tried in vain to read herself to sleep, got out of bed and put on her dressing gown.  Somehow she felt anxious about Timmy.  She had gone to his room on her way up to bed; but, hearing no sound, she had crept away, hoping that he had already cried himself to sleep.

All sorts of curious theories and suspicions drifted through her mind as she lay, tossing this way and that, trying to fall asleep.  She wondered uneasily why Timmy had brought Josephine at all into the drawing-room.  Of course there had been nothing exactly wrong in his doing so, though, as Betty had justly remarked, it was a stupid thing to do so soon after the birth of the cat’s kittens.  And Timmy was not stupid.

Janet told herself crossly that it was almost as if Mrs. Crofton had the evil eye, as far as animals were concerned!  There had come back to her the unpleasant scene which had occurred on the first evening their late guest had come to Old Place, when Flick, most cheerful and happy-minded of terriers, had behaved in such an extraordinary fashion.  But disagreeable as that affair had been, it was nothing to what had happened to-night.

She felt she would never forget the scene which had followed on the white cat’s attack on Mrs. Crofton.  And yet, while concerned and sorry, she had been shocked at the poor young woman’s utter lack of self-control.

It was quite true, as Betty had somewhat bitterly remarked, that she, Janet Tosswill, did not care for cats.  Unfortunately there was a certain sentimental interest attached to Josephine, for she had been brought from France as a kitten, a present from Betty to Timmy, by an officer who had been George’s closest pal.  She was also ruefully aware that old Nanna would very much resent the disappearance of “French pussy,” as she had always called Josephine.  As for Timmy, Janet had never seen her boy look as he had looked to-night since the dreadful day that they had received the War Office telegram about George.

Leaving her room, she walked along the corridor till she came to Timmy’s door.  She tried the handle, and, finding with relief that the door was unlocked, walked in.  At once there came a voice across the room, “Is that you, Mum?”

“Yes, Timmy, it’s Mum.”

Shutting the door, she felt her way across the room and came and sat down on Timmy’s bed.  He was sitting up, wide awake.