The green-eyed cat licked her wet paw, then she jumped down from the chair and trotted to the door to meet Eve, who picked her up and hugged her. "Pats," she demanded, "what have you been doing? Your little pads are wet."
"She's been fishing," said Aunt Maude, "in your aquarium. She has more sense than I thought."
Eve, pouring cream into a crystal dish, laughed. "Pats is as wise as the ages—you can see it in her eyes. She doesn't say anything, she just looks. Women ought to follow her example. It's the mysterious, the silent, that draws men. Now Polly prattles and prattles, and nobody listens, and we all get a little tired of her; don't we, Polly?"
She set the cream carefully by the green cushion, and Pats, classically posed on her haunches, lapped it luxuriously. The Polly-parrot coaxed and wheedled and was rewarded with her morning biscuit. The flame-colored fishes rose to the snowy particles which Eve strewed on the surface of the water, and then with all of her family fed, Eve turned to the table, sat down, and pulled away Aunt Maude's paper.
"My dear," the old lady protested.
"I want to talk to you," Eve announced. "Aunt Maude, I'm going to marry Dicky."
Aunt Maude pushed back her plate of waffles. The red began to rise in her cheeks. "Oh, of all the fools——"
"'He who calleth his brother a fool——'" Eve murmured pensively. "Aunt Maude, I'm in love with him."
"You're in love with yourself," tartly, "and with having your own way. The husband for you is Philip Meade. But he wants you, and so—you don't want him."
"Dicky wants me, too," Eve said, a little wistfully; "you mustn't forget that, Aunt Maude."
