s and beat of drums. He met it with a light
show of banter--beneath which, to come to the surface later, lay hidden
dark thoughts.

"Madame makes an excellent pleasantry," he said with a smile of the
blandest. "Without doubt, not a very flattering pleasantry--but I know
that her denial of me in favour of her cat is but a jesting at which we
both may laugh. And we may laugh together the better because, in the
roots of her jesting, we have our sympathies. I also have an intensity
of affection for cats"--to be just to Monsieur Peloux, who loathed cats,
it must be said that he gulped as he made this flagrantly untruthful
statement--"and with this admirable cat, so dear to Madame, it goes to
make itself that we speedily become enduring friends."

Curiously enough--a mere coincidence, of course--as the Notary uttered
these words so sharply at points with veracity, in the very moment of
them, the Shah de Perse stiffly retired into his sulkiest corner and
turned what had every appearance of being a scornful back upon the
world.

Judiciously ignoring this inopportunely equivocal incident, Monsieur
Peloux reverted to the matter in chief and concluded his deliverance in
these words: "I well understand, I repeat, that Madame for the moment
makes a comedy of herself and of her cat for my amusing. But I persuade
myself that her droll fancyings will not be lasting, and that she will
be serious with me in the end. Until then--and then most of all--I am at
her feet humbly: an unworthy, but a very earnest, suppliant for her
good-will. Should she have the cruelty to refuse my supplication, it
will remain with me to die in an unmerited despair!"

Certainly, this was an appeal--of a sort. But even without perceiving
the mitigating subtlety of its comminative final clause--so skilfully
worded as to leave Monsieur Peloux free to bring off his threatened
unmeritedly despairing death quite at his own convenience--Madame
Jolicoeur did not find it satisfying. In contrast with the Major
Gontard's ringingly audacious declarations of his habits in dealing with
fortresses, she felt that it lacked force. And, also--this, of course,
was a sheer weakness--she permitted herself to be influenced appreciably
by the indicated preferences of the Shah de Perse: who had jumped to the
knee of the Major with an affectionate alacrity; and who undeniably had
turned on the Notary--either by chance or by intention--a back of scorn.

As the general outcome of th