"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. Anything. You are most kind. You are Hebe, mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her head for a moment, and looked at him with some surprise.
"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh behind her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her head. She had seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.
The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.
"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat birds! that's my coffee. Va! Sauve toi! Hè voleur que tu es!" He sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing within reach. The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes towards him, looked back to the aromatic feast, and leapt expertly to the top of the table. Ste. Marie shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow, not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents, but the black cat did not even glance towards him. It smelt the coffee, sneezed over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very daintily, pausing often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats disapprove of hot dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.
There came a step outside the door, and the thief leapt down with some haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came in breathing terrible threats.
"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not." But Ste Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood in mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and hanging upon its whiskers.
"I did what I could, mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie; "but there was nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."
"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as if she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave once more, and she went out of the room with averted eyes.
Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements of the black cat, and as he watched something icy cold began to grow within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.
When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it names for moving with such lethargy.