Passing along a quiet street where the houses were separated from the pavement by gardens and stone balustrades, he noticed a black cat seated on the top of a pillar, its head thrown far back, and its wide-open eyes, looking like balls of yellow fire, fixed on a sparrow perched high above on the topmost twig of a tall slender tree. “Puss, puss,” said Eden, speaking to the animal almost unconsciously, and without pausing in his walk. Down instantly leapt the cat, inside the wall, and dashing through the shrubbery, shot ahead of him, and springing on to the balustrade thrust its head forward to catch a passing caress. He touched the soft black head with his fingers, and passed on with a little laugh. “An instance of the magical effect of kindness,” he soliloquised. “That cat sees more enemies than friends among the passers-by--the boy whose soul delights in persecuting a strange cat, and the young man with that most insolent and aggressive little beast a fox-terrier at his heels. And yet quick as lightning it understood the tone I spoke to it in, although the voice was strange, and shot past me and came out just for a pat on the head. A very sagacious cat; and yet I really felt no particular kindness towards it; the tone was only assumed. Its statuesque figure attracted me, as it sat there like a cat carved out of ebony, with two fiery splendid gems for eyes. I admired the beauty of the thing, that was all. And as with cats so it is with women. Let them once think that you are kind, and you have a great advantage. You may do almost anything after that; your kindness covers it all.... What an impudent juggler, and what an outrageous fibber, this confounded conscience is! I may not have felt any great kindness for black pussy when I spoke to her, but between that and carrying her home under my coat to vivisect her at leisure there is a vast difference. If I am ever unkind in act or word or deed to that sweet girl--no, the idea is too absurd! I can feel nothing but kindness for her, and if I felt convinced that I could not make her happy, then I would resign her at once, hard as that would be.” That same evening Eden received a second letter from Fan, but very short, enclosing the two foreign letters, which she had just found in one of his books. This was only what he had expected. He replied, also briefly, thanking her for sending the letters, and for the promise she had given, and there for the moment he allowed the affair to rest.