“If I am the King of Cats, you, Carissima, are the Queen.  Nay, more, you are the Goddess!”

Lola Brandt laughed.  I did not.  It was uncanny.  It seemed as if some mysterious freemasonic affinity existed between her and the evil beast.  During her drive hither she had entered my own atmosphere.  She had been the handsome, unconventional woman of the world.  Now she seemed as remote from me as the witches in “Macbeth.”

If I had seen her dashing Paris hat rise up into a point and her umbrella turn into a broomstick, and herself into one of the buxom carlines of “Tam O’Shanter,” I should not have been surprised.  The feats of the mild pussies which the dwarf began forthwith to exhibit provoked in me but a polite counterfeit of enthusiasm.  Lola Brandt had discounted my interest.  Even his performance with the ferocious Persian lacked the diabolical certainty of Lola’s handling.  He locked all the other cats up and enticed it out of the cage with a piece of fish.  He guided it with a small whip, as it jumped over gates and through blazing hoops, and he stood tense and concentrated, like a lion-tamer.

The act over, the cat turned and snarled and only jumped into its cage after a smart flick of the whip.  The dwarf did not touch it once with his hands.  I applauded, however, and complimented him.  He laid his hand on his heart and bent forward in humility.

“Ah, monsieur, I am but a neophyte where Madame is an expert.  I know the superficial nature of cats.  Now and then without vainglory I can say I know their hearts; but Madame penetrates to and holds commune with their souls.  And a cat’s soul, monsieur, is a wonderful thing.  Once it was divine—­in ancient Egypt.  Doubtless monsieur has heard of Pasht?  Holy men spent their lives in approaching the cat-soul.  Madame was born to the privilege.  Pasht watches over her.”

“Pasht,” I said politely in French, in reply to this clotted nonsense, “was a great divinity.  And for yourself, who knows but what you may have been in a previous incarnation the keeper of the Sacred Cats in some Egyptian temple.”

“I was,” he said, with staggering earnestness.  “At Memphis.”

“One of these days,” I returned, with equal solemnity, “I hope for the privilege of hearing some of your reminiscences.  They would no doubt be interesting.”

On the way back Lola thanked me for pretending to take the little man seriously, and not laughing at him.

“If I hadn’t,” said I, “he would have stuck his knife into me.”

She shook her head.  “You did it naturally.  I was watching you.  It is because you are a generous-hearted gentleman.”

Said I:  “If you talk like that I’ll get out and walk.”

And, indeed, what right had she to characterise the moral condition of my heart?  I asked her.  She laughed her low, lazy laugh, but made no reply.  Presently she said: 

“Why didn’t you like my making friends with the cat?”