“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.

“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.