"Oh, Fred! Fred! Come here! Come and look!"
He followed her. She was standing before Mrs. Slightly's basket. The cat was purring, its eyes half-shut, tired after the tremendous function of motherhood. Six little rat-like, squirming bodies lay against her own.
"Six of them!" breathed Maggy triumphantly. "Aren't they lovely! Wasn't it worth going on the tiles for, Mrs. Dearest? The cat's cradle is full, full!"
Woolf disengaged her arm from his.
"It's disgusting," he said angrily. "You ought to have got rid of her before this, or—or kept her in. You can't keep the kittens. They'll have to be drowned."
Maggy looked at him blankly.
"Aren't you pleased?" she asked, surprised.
"Pleased! At a sight like that! Besides, you told me a lie. I won't have lies. You must have known before you went to the theater that the cat had had kittens—"
"I didn't. Oh, how dare you say so! Do you think I'd have gone out and left her all these hours without any milk by her side if I'd guessed they were coming so soon?"
She flew off, and came back with a saucer of bread and milk. She put it on the floor and went down on her hands and knees beside the newly-born animals. There was a rapt expression on her face.