Mrs. Gilmour looked a little put out for a moment, then she said:
'I don't suppose they would admit the young gentleman except on those conditions. Well, well, if people have absurd fancies they must pay for them. Your friend seems to have plenty of good money to throw away!'
Auntie May said she would send a letter of directions to Mrs. Dillon's maid, to tell her how to feed the kitten on the voyage. Forgetting apparently that Mrs. Gilmour was there still, she went on:
'When medicine has to be given, I prefer it in the form of powders.' Mrs. Gilmour pretended to be interested in order to be nastier afterwards. 'To liquids they close their throats somehow, and it runs out of the corner of their mouths. As for giving pills! Petronilla shoots the pill several feet into the air, and the first thing that tells me she hasn't swallowed it is the noise it makes as it hits the ceiling. Poor Pet! She appears to think it funny.'
'So do I!' said Beatrice, screaming with laughter. 'I think I see Petronilla, with her Burne-Jones angel expression, staring up to the ceiling to see if she has hit the bull's eye, and you in despair because you can't get the pills driven into her.'
'Has your cat had any very alarming illnesses?' inquired Mrs. Gilmour, with a very perfidious expression, but Auntie May was quite taken in by her appearance of interest.
'Let me see, Petronilla has had gastritis, and she has once ricked her back jumping backwards, and then she had to have massage—'
'Did it come expensive?' inquired the old lady.
'Yes, very. My cats cost me a fortune. What with their food and their illnesses, etc., what I can raise on Pet's kittens hardly repays me for my outlay.'
'Why don't you keep a nice common underbred kitchen cat that nobody wants to steal? A serviceable beast that can go out in all weathers, and get through the long grass without getting its fur wet and draggled,' said Mrs. Gilmour.