"I am, anyhow!"
"Just think what the house would be without her!"
"The best place in the world still for me." She acknowledges this by a kiss on his hairy hand, which he returns via her forehead; then goes on: "All the same, I'll be hanged if I know what we should do without our kitten. But has anything made you afraid?"
"Oh no; nothing at all! Certainly; no, nothing. Have you noticed anything?"
"Oh dear, no! For anything I can see, she may continue a—a sort of mer-pussy to the end of time." Both laugh in a way at the name he has made for her; then he adds: "Only...."
"Only what?"
"Nothing I could lay hold of."
"I wonder whether you're thinking of the same thing as I am?" Very singularly, it does not seem necessary to elucidate the point. They merely look at each other, and continue looking as Fenwick says:
"They are a funny couple, if that's it!"
"They certainly are," she replies. "But I have thought so, for all that!" And then both look at the fire as before, this being, of course, in the depth of winter. Rosalind speaks next.