The next day Mr. Cromartie found Josephine Lackett waiting for him when he first went into his cage after breakfast. She was standing a little distance off looking out of the door of the Ape-house (to give it its old name), and Cromartie called out to her before he reflected on what he was doing: “Josephine! Josephine! What are you doing there?”

She turned round and came towards him, and the sight of her so much affected Mr. Cromartie that for sometime he did not trust himself to speak again, and when he did so it was more tenderly than he had done since his captivity. But Josephine on her part could not for sometime get used to the presence of Mr. Tennison, who sat lolling in a deck chair within a few feet of them and kept putting his gold-rimmed eyeglass in his eye to stare at her, and then letting it fall out, as if he had not quite learnt the trick of it, which was indeed the case, as he had only bought it a week before.

For some little time then Josephine found herself with nothing to say except to congratulate John on his recovery, and to tell him how glad she was that he was well again. Then she thanked him for calling to her and letting her speak to him.

“Don’t behave like a goose, Josephine,” said John Cromartie. Then guessing why she was constrained, he said: “My dear Josephine, do ignore him as I do.”

But Josephine did not speak, and just then in strolled the Caracal, having just completed his morning toilet.

“I paid your cat several visits while you were ill,” said Josephine. “He seemed very unhappy and would not take much notice of me. I think he is rather shy of women, and is not used to them.”

Mr. Cromartie nodded. He was glad Josephine had gone to see the Caracal, but he knew that she had wasted her time; he did not care for the people who came and gazed into his cage from the outside. Suddenly he heard Josephine say: “John, I must see you in private. I must talk to you, because I cannot go on like this. You cannot go on shirking things any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you must recognise that we are bound up with each other. I don’t mind what you decide to do, but you must do something. I cannot go on living like this any longer. Please arrange somehow for us to see each other and talk it over.”

It was Cromartie now who was embarrassed and shy; Cromartie who could not talk simply about what he felt, at least not for a considerable time. At last, however, he got out a few disconnected remarks, saying he was very sorry but he could do nothing then, and that he was not a free agent. But in the end he got more confidence and looked Josephine straight in the eyes and said: “My dear, it’s quite inevitable that both of us should be unhappy. I love you, if you want me to put it in that way. I cannot ever forget you, and now you seem to be feeling the same for me, and you too must expect to be very unhappy. I only hope your feeling for me will wear off. I daresay it will in time, and I hope my feeling for you will also. Until then we must try and be resigned.”