Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/247

 Rh also, which is the unusual feature of the case, distressingly ugly. It was at the close of a long skirmish—hardly worthy to be called a battle—in the Yellow Sea, that she leaped from a Chinese junk to the French warship, and, guided by instinct or destiny, took refuge in Loti's cabin,—a piteous object, meagre, terrified, miserable, the most forlorn and desolate of intruders, but absolutely determined to remain.

Loti, to do him justice, did not yield without a protest. The strange Moumoutte was not attractive, and she was sadly in the way; but, when he put her out, she scuttled directly back again, always fixing on him a gaze so human and so imploring that he was fascinated by its intensity. In the end she triumphed, and was for seven months his close and constant companion; while Moumoutte Blanche, far away in France, drowsed in the sunny garden paths, and dreamed of his return. Propinquity, as we know, is the one sure road to love; and, during those seven months, master and cat had rare opportunities for intimate acquaintance. A man-of-war offers few distractions to the growing charms of companionship.

"I well remember," writes M. Loti, "the day when our relations became really affectionate. It was a melancholy afternoon in September. The first winds of Autumn roughened the sullen seas.