“He shouts,” Henrietta said, “and I’m sorry for him. And I do like him very much. I feel inclined to do things just to please him.”
“Don’t let that carry you too far.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Not him, exactly, but me.”
“I didn’t suspect you of such tenderness. I shall have to look after you.”
“I wish you would.”
“And if you are feeling very kind some day, perhaps you will go and see Christabel Sales. She has promised to behave herself.”
Henrietta’s expression tightened. “I don’t want to go. It’s a dreadful place.”
“I know,” Rose said, and she added encouragingly, “but the cat has gone.”
They were standing together in the hall and against the white panelled walls, the figure of Rose, in the austere riding habit, one gauntletted hand holding her crop, the other resting lightly on her hip, had an heroic aspect, like a statue in dark marble; but her eyes did not offer the blank gaze, the calm effrontery of stone: they looked at Henrietta with something like appeal against this obsession of the cat.
“Oh, I’m glad the cat’s gone,” Henrietta murmured. “What happened to it?”