Samson was not an accessory either before or after the fact, and it was a fact which had postponed his tea, and to which he would therefore have definitely refused his consent if consulted. She opened the door and Samson flew past her and consumed loudly and without hesitation Prendergast’s neglected dinner. Prendergast had not wanted his dinner, and he did not want it now, but still less did he wish to see a low cat indulging itself with his sacred rites. There had always been a state of armed neutrality between the two animals: neither was strong enough to wholly destroy the other, so they wisely avoided combat, but they were not friends. Prendergast growled feebly from his basket, and gazed at his mistress expecting her instant and effectual intervention, but Miss Strickland sank down on a chair beside him with all her things on and her hands in her lap. Bridget had let the fire go out and Prendergast shivered sharply to remind Onoria to relight it. What had she come home for if not to relight the fire and restore comfort? But still she did not raise her eyes—she murmured “There, there,” and “Poor old Prendie—” but her mind was not on him. She was sitting in a curiously bowed position, as if something within her was refusing to fight. Samson finished the last mouthful of Prendergast’s meal, wiped his whiskers ostentatiously in front of the basket and disappeared lightly through a back window. He was quite willing to eat a meal in Miss Strickland’s house but he had no intention of giving her the benefit of his company in return. A person who kept a moribund pug in a basket was hardly the kind of society a cat of Samson’s standing in the neighbourhood would care to choose as a friend. Miss Strickland did not notice the defection of Samson; she did not for a long while notice anything. There was an inward drama in her heart which held her whole attention. Something implored her to let her pride go, and keep her friends. It told her that she was getting old and had few earthly ties, that Elsie was dearer to her than she knew, and even Peter was a treasured habit left over from the richer years, and that if she used her anger too ruthlessly against them she would be condemning herself to perpetual loneliness. One cannot make new ties at fifty-three, too much of life has gone, too many hopes have passed into too many memories. One cannot explain oneself to new friends, and they cannot know how the early generosities and charms of our characters have staled and wearied with the weight of time. They do not excuse our scars or realise our finished struggles. How can they dream that our egoism was once a winged idealism set to reach the stars? That our irritability was a vivacity of intellect condemned to a provincial vocabulary, that even our dogmatism is but an old loyalty stiffened into bad temper? It is in middle age that we most need the mercy of a contemporary, and the memory of a friend.