Page:Weird Tales v01n03 (1923-05).djvu/64

Rh pied with nothing but cats. He was sure she had been writing something about cats in her book.

To prove his contention he walked to the desk. He picked up the small, leather-bound book. He read:

David laid the notebook down. There! He had been right. He strode back to his chair. Myra returned to the room.

"I looked out of the dining-room window," she said. "I could not see the cat. It is awful outside."

She paused.

"Cats are such unfortunate creatures. In fact, all animals are unfortunate—animals domesticated by man. They never know when their masters are going to turn against them, or at least ignore them."

"People treat cats that way because cats are good for nothing," David put in, "Cats enter your home, eat your food, roll up on your bed, and do nothing. Rat traps are better for catching rats and mice. You don't need cats in the scheme of things. They are worthless."

"Yes," added Myra softly, in a passionless voice. "A woman comes into your home, and eats your food, and spends your money, and curls up on your bed. A cook and a housekeeper can do better work than she."

"There is no comparison," cried David. "A woman at least shows you some affection—a cat never."

"A woman shows affection when she knows that it is wanted," Myra said in a distant voice.

There was an awkward silence. These arguments never came to anything. Why did they indulge in them? They always led to disagreeable subjects, or touched on the fatuity of marriage. No, such arguments never did any good. Far better if both remained silent. David picked up his book.

"Cats are very intelligent animals," Myra continued, half aloud. "They know instantly when they are not wanted. If anyone in a household hates cat, there is no need of that person speaking gruffly or striking the cat. The cat will know. Cats have powers of divination which are denied most humans. They are such sensitive creatures. They respond to the least touch, the least kind thought. They slink away at the least unkind word, at the least unkind thought."

She hesitated, trifling with her pen.

"They know when they are not wanted, I should not be surprised if a cat would go out into the cold—on a night like this—if it knew it was not wanted."

"Stop such darn foolishness!" growled David.

Myra looked at him, raising her eyebrows quizzically.

"Please don't talk that way," she said.

For an instant there came over him a surge of hatred. Would she ever leave him alone! Alone for a few minutes of peaceful reading. Wasn't she contented to live quietly and peacefully without continually worrying herself about cats, and whether or not her husband still loved her.

She was talking:

"It is true I love cats, I have loved them all my life. They are the most beautiful and graceful of animals. But please forgive me if I hurt you by talking about them. They show me affection. They seem to know that I love them."

But David was not listening, He was thinking. She was like a cat. Her movements were catlike. Truly, she was every inch a cat. Come into your home, absorb your warmth, eat your food, taunt you, insist on being stroked and petted at every turn—truly a remarkable woman, as remarkable as those small animals she adored, David scowled.

Events tumbled over themselves in his mind. She was susceptible to men. When one caressed her with his voice she almost purred with pleasure. She loved those who flattered her. He had flattered her most and had won her. She now still expected all the flattery and little attentions which he had given her before. She could not 'settle down.' He felt that he exuded hate at that moment. He felt that at last his eyes were opened.

Myra got up from her desk again.

"I'm going out into the back yard and see if I can find that kitty," she announced.

David could not read now. He sat silently in his chair, repressing the wrathful things that tried to force themselves from his lips. He heard Myra putting on her shoes.

She peeped in finally and smiled wistfully. He sat in the same spot. The back door closed softly.

David gradually began to grow calmer. He sat and waited. In the silent house, the quiet broken only by the rattling of the windows and the thudding of the snow against the glass, he began to look back over his married life.

They had been more or less happy during the three years. It would be hard to find another woman who would put up with his idiosyncrasies. What a fool he was! Myra was a wonderful woman, after all, the most wonderful in the world!

He walked to the back door and called out into the night. He rushed through the snow and the cutting wind. He returned and waited. The clock told off the long hours.

Then it came to him—Myra's words, "I should not be surprised if a cat would go out on a night like this—into the cold—if it knew it was not wanted"

years from now Chicago's citizens will no longer be rooted to the ground, but will fly in the air like birds, according to Mrs. William J. Chalmers, who has been closely identified with the city's progress.

"As we overstepped the bounds between earth and water, so we will overstep that between earth and air," she declares. "Whether it will be through some simple device which we will attach to our shoulders or feet, or whether we will learn breath control so that we can literally swim through the air, I cannot say. Certainly in fifty years this will come to pass that we will all own small aeroplanes, so perfected that it will be possible for us to alight on the window ledges of our apartments, whether they be ten or twenty stories high. Chicago will, fifty years hence, have become a seaport. Steamships will be run electricity and will attain tremendous speed. But steamers will be used for heavy loads and passenger travel will be by aeroplane."