'Well, then, dear Pet, I must tell you. Togo was getting too old to run about with women and children, and he has had his curls cut off, and been packed off to a preparatory school!'
'Tsha!' mother spat angrily. She didn't choose to be chaffed by a child. 'School! I am not going to be put off with a cock-and-bull story like that.'
But she couldn't keep it up for very long. She did really care what had become of Admiral Togo, and she hung her head and dropped her tail and tried to get behind the door.
'Poor Petronilla! You seem very much distressed!' observed Auntie May, coming in just then, and kindly lifting mother up, and putting her back with us. 'But you are a sensible cat—I never knew a sensibler—and you have been through this kind of thing before. Cheer up! You have three left.'
'And I wonder how long I shall have them?' mother muttered. 'You are making pretty quick work with them. You have killed one, and now you have sold the other—'
Her bitterness made her unjust, because Auntie May didn't kill Blanch, though she certainly had sold Admiral Togo, for what Rosamond said next showed it.
'May I go and see Togo?'
'You may. I am sure Mrs. Dillon will have no objection, but don't imagine for a moment that Togo will be glad to see you. Cats have hardly any memories, and kittens none at all. And a good thing too, for treated as chattels as they are they would have wretched lives of it. They don't listen to the rain upon the roof and think of other days, or have tears come into their eyes when they look at sunsets because they feel so ancient—'
'Why, Auntie May, you are talking like an old cat, while you are only a young woman. You aren't very old—not more than thirty, are you?'
'That is just the most miserable age,' said Auntie May; 'when I am forty I shall be as cheerful as—old boots!' She actually wiped a tear away as she spoke. 'Good gracious me, Pet is simply murdering Freddy! Drop it—drop it!'