'Oh, Loki, you villain, you darling, you naughty little cat! How come you to be out? Mercy, when I think of what might have happened! A valuable cat, alone in Paris at midnight! I hope at least you have not been very far away from this door. This is a quiet sort of street, thank goodness. Quick! Say! Set my mind at rest!'
She shook me gently and I said, 'No,' but of course she only thought I mewed.
'Your sweet little mew quite disarms me. Oh, but you have given me a fright—an awful fright!'
I asked her if she had enjoyed herself?
'Why a fright, do you say? Anybody might have run off with you and made a boa of you. They wouldn't have made mincemeat, however, for you are a valuable cat, and they could see that at a glance, though you are English. They would have sold you into slavery. Well, people are honester than I thought! But perhaps nobody has passed this way? Dis, mon chou!' She had got so French that she called me a cabbage.
She squeezed me again, and I tried to remind her that nobody had answered that bell, and that her cloak was open, and it wasn't even a piece of whole fur, for it missed her neck out.
'Yes, you may well mew, for you are a really naughty little cat, and have wrung your poor mistress's heart. Why don't they open that door? How long have we been standing here? Come under my cloak.'
'I wish you would fasten it,' I said.
'You are very conversational, Loki, to-night. I begin to think you have had adventures. I'll ring again. Conf—bother that concierge! Lazy creature! I'll ring the house down if he doesn't come soon. Well, well, we must possess our little souls in patience, Loki, you and I. Isn't it funny, standing out here in a strange town all alone at twelve o'clock at night, Loki? Awfully queer, and such a queer party I have been to. We drank punch in long glasses, and ate plum-cake and spoiled our gloves. When will this man answer the bell and open the door?'
She rang again. We both listened.