And as Phil came closer, he saw it truly was the bronze statue of a cat, encrusted with verdigris almost exactly the hue of Lucky's coat. Coming up beside him, Sacheverell explained, "As soon as _he_ came, I routed out all our relics of Bast. Most of them are in there," he indicated the black velvet curtains, "around the altar. But a few are here." And he pointed out, beside the bronze statue, a small mummy case and inside it the linen-banded mummy of a cat, looking like a little sack with a blob at the top. As Sacheverell was explaining the tiny Canopic jar of preserved cat entrails beside it, a six-toed Siamese wandered up and sniffed the mummy thoughtfully. Finally Phil found his voice. "Then you actually do have Lucky?" Sacheverell's high curved eyebrows curved still higher. "Lucky?" "The green cat," Phil added. Sacheverell's face grew serenely grave. "No one has the green cat," he reproved Phil. "It would not be permitted. He has us. We are his humble worshippers, his primal hierophants." "But I want to see him," Phil said. "That will be permitted," Sacheverell assured Phil, "when he wakes and the world changes. Meanwhile, compose yourself, er ... Phil Gish, you say? Phil ... philo ... love ... an auspicious name." "Why the mucking hell is this green cat so important, anyhow? What is it?" The two men turned. Juno was still standing on the threshold. She was swayed forward a little, hugging her elbows, yet had her shoulders squared and was glaring at them surlily, like a rebellious schoolgirl. "The green cat is love," Sacheverell told her softly. "The love that blossoms even from hate." There was another interruption. This one took the form of a coy, girlish snicker. Phil turned to the side of the room he had not yet inspected closely, the one facing the fireplace. In it was a deep, wide bay window closely shuttered with gray jalousies, as were all the other windows in the room except for one fronting on darkness beside the fireplace. In the bay was a semicircular couch on which Mary Akeley sprawled adolescently, still in black sweater and stiff, red skirt. "You know," she said, "I just can't get used to the idea of loving everything. Sacheverell says I've got to be nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it's hard."