I went away feeling angry.  Was the woman bewitching me?  And I felt angrier still when I met Lady Kynnersley at dinner that evening.  Luckily I had only a few words with her.  Had I done anything yet with regard to Dale and the unmentionable woman?  If I had told her that I had spent a most agreeable afternoon with the enchantress, she would not have enjoyed her evening.  Like General Trochu of the Siege of Paris fame, I said in my most mysterious manner, “I have my plan,” and sent her into dinner comforted.

But I had no plan.  My next interview with Madame Brandt brought me no further.  We have established telephonic communications.  Through the medium of this diabolical engine of loquacity and indiscretion, I was prevailed on to accompany her to a rehearsal of Anastasius’s cats.

Rogers, with a face as imperturbable as if he was announcing the visit of an archbishop, informed me at the appointed hour that Madame Brandt’s brougham was at the door.  I went down and found the brougham open, as the day was fine, and Lola Brandt, smiling under a gigantic hat with an amazing black feather, and looking as handsome as you please.

We were blocked for a few minutes at the mouth of the courtyard, and I had the pleasure of all Piccadilly that passed staring at us in admiration.  Lola Brandt liked it; but I didn’t, especially when I recognised one of the starers as the eldest Drascombe-Prynne boy whose people in Paris are receiving Eleanor Faversham under their protection.  A nice reputation I shall be acquiring.  My companion was in gay mood.  Now, as it is no part of dealing unto oneself a happy life and portion to damp a fellow creature’s spirits, I responded with commendable gaiety.

I own that the drive to Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos’s cattery in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, was distinctly enjoyable.  I forgot all about the little pain inside and the Fury with the abhorred shears, and talked a vast amount of nonsense which the lady was pleased to regard as wit, for she laughed wholeheartedly, showing her strong white, even teeth.  But why was I going?

Was it because she had requested me through the telephone to give unimagined happiness to a poor little freak who would be as proud as Punch to exhibit his cats to an English Member of Parliament?  Was it in order to further my designs—­Machiavellian towards the lady, but eumoirous towards Dale?  Or was it simply for my own good pleasure?

Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, resplendently raimented, with the shiniest of silk hats and a flower in the buttonhole of his frock-coat, received us at the door of a small house, the first-floor windows of which announced the tenancy of a maker of gymnastic appliances; and having kissed Madame Brandt’s hand with awful solemnity and bowed deeply to me, he preceded us down the passage, out into the yard, and into a ramshackle studio at the end, where his cats had their being.