The four sat down. Laurie watched Mr. Vincent step up into the
cabinet, jerk the curtains this way and that, and at last sit easily
back, in such a way that his face could be seen in a kind of twilight,
and the rest of his body perfectly visible.
Then silence came down upon the room.
II
The cat of the next house decided to go a-walking after an excellent
supper of herring-heads. He had an appointment with a friend. So he
cleaned himself carefully on the landing outside the pantry, evaded a
couple of caresses from the young footman lately come from the
country, and finally leapt on the window-sill, and sat there regarding
the back garden, the smoky wall beyond seen in the light of the pantry
window, and the chimney-pots high and forbidding against the luminous
night sky. His tail moved with a soft ominous sinuousness as he
looked.
Presently he climbed cautiously out beneath the sash, gathered himself
for a spring, and the next instant was seated on the boundary wall
between his own house and that of Lady Laura's.
Here again he paused. That which served him for a mind, that
mysterious bundle of intuitions and instincts by which he reckoned
time, exchanged confidences, and arranged experiences, informed him
that the night was yet young, and that his friend would not yet be
arrived.
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