Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/254

 It was a lovely house to lie about in, to talk in, to dream, in. It was restful and quaint, offering a pleasing contrast to the eccentric modernity of the other humes I visited at this period. There was no electricity. The chandeliers burned gas but the favourite illumination was afforded by lamps with round glass globes of various colours, through which the soft light filtered.

On an afternoon in December, 1919, we were lounging in the drawing-room. Peter had curled himself into a sort of knot on a broad sofa with three carved walnut curves at the back. He had spread a knitted coverlet over his feet, for it was a little chilly, in spite of the fact that a wood fire was smouldering in the grate. On the table before him there was a highball glass, half-full of the proper ingredients, and sprawling beside him on the sofa, a magnificent blue Persian cat, which he called Chalcedony. George Moore and George Sand had long since perished of old age and Lou Matagot had been a victim of the laboratory explosion. There was a certain melancholy implicit in their absence. Nothing reminds us so irresistibly of the passing of time as the short age allotted on this earth to our dear cats. The pinchbottle and several bottles of soda, a bowl of cracked ice and a bowl of Fatima cigarettes, which both of us had grown to prefer, reposed conveniently on the table between us. I remember the increasing silence as