"I don't want the kitten all to myself, you know," said Fenwick. "It wouldn't be fair. After all, she _was_ yours before she was mine." There was not a tremor in the hand that lay in his, the one that was not caressing her cheek; not a sign of flinching in the eyes that turned round on him; not a trace of hesitation in the voice that said, with concession to a laugh in it: "Yes, she _was_ mine before she was yours." Such skill had grown in this life of nettle-grasping!--indeed, she hardly felt the sting now. This time she was able to go on placidly, in the unconnected way of talk books know not, and life well knows: "Do you know what the kitten will be next August?" "Yes; twenty-one." "It's rather awful, isn't it?" "Which way do you mean? It's awful because she isn't _fiancee_, or awful because she might be at any minute?" "You've picked up her way of going to the point, Gerry. I never said anything about her being _fiancee_." "No, but you meant it." "Of course I did! Well, then, because she might be any minute. I'm very glad she _isn't_. Why, you know I _must_ be!" "_I_ am, anyhow!" "Just think what the house would be without her!" "The best place in the world still for me." She acknowledges this by a kiss on his hairy hand, which he returns _via_ her forehead; then goes on: "All the same, I'll be hanged if I know what we should do without our kitten. But has anything made you afraid?" "Oh no; nothing at all! Certainly; no, nothing. Have _you_ noticed anything?" "Oh dear, no! For anything I can see, she may continue a--a sort of mer-pussy to the end of time." Both laugh in a way at the name he has made for her; then he adds: "Only...." "Only what?" "Nothing I could lay hold of." "I wonder whether you're thinking of the same thing as I am?" Very singularly, it does not seem necessary to elucidate the point. They merely look at each other, and continue looking as Fenwick says: "They _are_ a funny couple, if that's it!" "They certainly _are_," she replies. "But I _have_ thought so, for all that!" And then both look at the fire as before, this being, of course, in the depth of winter. Rosalind speaks next. "There's no doubt about _him_, of course! But the chick would have told me at once if...." "If there had been anything to tell. No doubt she would." "Of course, it's absurd to suppose he could see so much of her as he does, and not...." "Perfectly absurd! But then, you know, that young fiddler was very bad, indeed, about the chick until he made her acquaintance." "So he was." Thoughtfully, as one who weighs. "The kitten met him with a sort of stony geniality that would have knocked the heart out of a Romeo. If Juliet had known the method, she could have nipped Shakespeare in the bud." "She _didn't_ want to. Sally _did_."