Page:Lolly Willowes - 1926.djvu/224

 at if his methods were a little sketchy. Now that the Devil had taken matters into his own hands—and of this she felt assured—all would soon be well. Well for her, well for Titus. Really, it was time that poor boy was released from his troubles, She felt complete confidence in the Devil, a confidence that the kitten had never inspired. There was a tinge of gratuitous malice in Vinegar's character; he was, as one says, rather a cat. She suspected him of meditating a scratch which would give Titus blood-poisoning. She remembered with uneasiness what cats are said to do to sleeping infants, and every night she was careful to imprison Vinegar in her bedroom, a useless precaution since he had come in by the keyhole and might as easily go out by it. The Devil would get rid of Titus more speedily, more kindly (he had no reason to be anything but kind: she could not imagine Titus being of the smallest interest to Satan), more economically. There would be no catastrophe, no pantechnicon displays of flood or fire. He would proceed discreetly and surely, like a gamekeeper going his rounds by night; he would remove Titus as imperturbably as Dunlop had removed the beech-leaf. She could sit back quite com-