A tiny cage was hanging from a hook on the wall. In it was a thing much beloved by Campanula—an insect like a grasshopper that sang a buzzing and tremulous sort of song. The mushi was a creature that only sang by night as a rule, but some spirit had moved its poetic soul, for it was singing now.
“It’s that thing in the cage,” said Jane, pointing to it tremulously, thankful for any excuse to escape the glances of the Mousmés.
He looked up, sprang to his feet, went to the cage, and tore it from its hook.
The Mousmés screamed out, for from his furious manner and the expression of his face they felt he was about to dash cage and mushi on the matting, and trample them underfoot.
And he was, for one horrible moment. Then something in him prevailed—the something that had made him pick the Lost One up and kiss her, and carry her all the way to Nikko; the spirit of good that had made him always not so bad as he might have been.
He rehung the little cage on the hook, and the thing in it became dumb; the sound in his head that troubled him had died away, and he returned to where Jane was sitting, and resumed his position on the cushions near her.
Then he told the Mousmés to leave what they had brought on the floor, and to go away till he called them.
“Oh,” said Jane, when they were alone again, “to think they should have seen me like that. Oh, Dick! How could we—how could I—”
“They don’t matter,” said he gloomily.
“Oh, don’t talk to me!” She wrung her hands.