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“May I ask, sir, why I should care about a father and mother who deserted me? Mind what you are about, my lady!” he cried–suddenly addressing my aunt. “There’s a cat in the folds of that curtain; she might frighten you.”

He had barely said the words before the housekeeper’s large tabby cat, taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped out and made for the door.

Lady Claudia was, naturally enough, a little perplexed by the man’s discovery of an animal completely hidden in the curtain. She appeared to think that a person who was only a groom had taken a liberty in presuming to puzzle her. Like her husband, she spoke to Michael sharply.

“Did you see the cat?” she asked.

“No, my lady.”

“Then how did you know the creature was in the curtain?”

For the first time since he had entered the room the groom looked a little confused.

“It’s a sort of presumption for a man in my position to be subject to a nervous infirmity,” he answered. “I am one of those persons (the weakness is not uncommon, as your ladyship is aware) who know by their own unpleasant sensations when a cat is in the room. It goes a little further than that with me. The ‘antipathy,’ as the gentlefolks call it, tells me in what part of the room the cat is.”

My aunt turned to her husband, without attempting to conceal that she took no sort of interest in the groom’s antipathies.

“Haven’t you done with the man yet?” she asked.

The General gave the groom his dismissal.

“You shall hear from me in three days’ time. Good-morning.”

Michael Bloomfield seemed to have noticed my aunt’s ungracious manner. He looked at her for a moment with steady attention before he left the room.

V.

“You don’t mean to engage that man?” said Lady Claudia as the door closed.

“Why not?” asked my uncle.

“I have taken a dislike to him.”

This short answer was so entirely out of the character of my aunt that the General took her kindly by the hand, and said:

“I am afraid you are not well.”

She irritably withdrew her hand.

“I don’t feel well. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Claudia. What can I do for you?”

“Write to the man–” She paused and smiled contemptuously. “Imagine a groom with an antipathy to cats!” she said, turning to me. “I don’t know what you think, Mina. I have a strong objection, myself, to servants who hold themselves above their position in life. Write,” she resumed, addressing her husband, “and tell him to look for another place.”

“What objection can I make to him?” the General asked, helplessly.

“Good heavens! can’t you make an excuse? Say he is too young.”

My uncle looked at me in expressive silence–walked slowly to the writing-table–and glanced at his wife, in the faint hope that she might change her mind. Their eyes met–and she seemed to recover the command of her temper. She put her hand caressingly on the General’s shoulder.

“I remember the time,” she said, softly, “when any caprice of mine was a command to you. Ah, I was younger then!”

The General’s reception of this little advance was thoroughly characteristic of him. He first kissed Lady Claudia’s hand, and then he wrote the letter. My aunt rewarded him by a look, and left the library.

“What the deuce is the matter with her?” my uncle said to me when we were alone. “Do you dislike the man, too?”

“Certainly not. As far as I can judge, he appears to be just the sort of person we want.”

“And knows thoroughly well how to manage horses, my dear. What can be your aunt’s objection to him?”

As the words passed his lips Lady Claudia opened the library door.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” she said, sweetly. “At my age, I have been behaving like a spoiled child. How good you are to me, General! Let me try to make amends for my misconduct. Will you permit me?”