Then Ariel Jenkins’s thoughts began the converging process, began to gather in towards some definite centre, to fix themselves upon some one thing which all these estimable women must have in mind. And when Mrs. Parry Wynn left the shop, Ariel went to the door. Betto Griffiths walked by briskly, joining the women who had just made purchases and who were gathered in a little group opposite Ty Mawr. They were looking eagerly at the house and gesticulating. Betto Griffiths laughed harshly as she pointed at Ty Mawr, and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of the shop. Ariel’s heart sank. What had Janny done to make the house such an object of attraction? He stepped out to the little group of customers and looked up.
Except for the quick flexing of the muscles in his forehead and the dilation of his eyes Ariel betrayed no emotion. The oriel window jutting over the street had been transformed; he saw no longer the clear glass of the stairway-light common to Ty Mawr and the other houses of Glaslyn, but a crimson cat, fore-feet in air, blazoned on a green background, each quarter of the oriel brilliant with a yellow star and the whole device bound together with a chaplet of rope.
Betto Griffiths laughed.
“It does make a pretty light!” he exclaimed thoughtfully; “prettier,” he added with pride, “than I had any idea it would.”
The women stared at him.
“Aye, an’ it’s prettier within,” he continued; “it sheds such a bright colour on dark days.”
“No, is it so!” ejaculated Mrs. Parry Wynn.
“Aye, it is so,” replied Ariel. “Out of Glaslyn ye see many coloured windows like this in private houses—smart houses of course.”
“Just fancy!” responded Mrs. Jeezer Morris, “we’ve seen them in churches, the Nonconformists as well as the Established, but we’ve never heard of coloured windows before in a village house, especially not with such a cat——”