'Oh, Tom, how can you laugh with Beatrice in such a state?' She began to cry herself and rock about in the carriage.
'Better to laugh than cry with an invalid any day,' said Tom. 'And I tell you what, May, my dear, if you are going to be a hysterical muff, you had much better not have come down at all. You will do Beatrice more harm than good. Stow it, can't you? Good Lord, now there's the wretched brute in the basket beginning to caterwaul!'
I was not caterwauling, only trying to tell Auntie May to be quiet and that Tom was quite right. But one is so easily misunderstood. However, Auntie May got sensible all at once, and thanked Tom for speaking sharply to her, and said she meant to do Beatrice good, not harm, and would he like to see the little kitten, and she had chosen the prettiest, and so on.
'If you like you can let the beast out,' he said roughly. 'I look upon all cats as vermin myself. I know I shoot 'em pretty quick when they come into the garden. They are so beastly destructive, you know, worse than rabbits even. Here, yank him out and let's see the little beggar.'
So out I came, and I at once crawled all over his nice great knees, covered with thick lovely wool that I could pick up with my claws in handfuls and not be missed. My claws were little and the stuff was thick, not like the clothes of Auntie May's friends, male and female. The men squirm when I get on their knees and try to bear it, but the women jump up and squeak the moment you touch them. They have only got one coating probably under their thin muslin gowns, being ridiculously under-furred. But Tom only grinned and said:
'Go it, little un! You can't hurt me. Beatrice's knitted stockings will stand a good deal. Poor darling! I only wish I knew whether she would ever knit me any more of them!'
'Now you mustn't be depressed!' said Auntie May, patting his knees. She was awfully fond of Tom I could see, and he of her, though he abused her all the time, and laughed at her novels and her editors and publishers, and her life in London generally, so different from his and Beatrice's. I was very eager to see Beatrice, because she was Auntie May's sister and Rosamond's mother, but I was not allowed to until after supper, mine and Auntie May's. We had it with Tom alone, and he hardly said a word all dinner, though the nurse came down and told us that Beatrice was much better and hadn't fainted at all that day, and had eaten quite a fair meal at seven.