She did not rise at their entrance, nor make any sign that she had noticed them at all. But perhaps she did not hear them. For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another.

So the Greysteels and Signor Tosetti, practical people, sat down in the terrible little room and Aunt Greysteel, with her kind smile and solicitous wishes that every one should be made comfortable and easy, began their addresses to the old lady.

“I hope, my dear Mrs Delgado, that you will forgive this intrusion, but my niece and I wished to do ourselves the honour of waiting upon you.” Aunt Greysteel paused in case the old lady wished to make a reply, but the old lady said nothing. “What an airy situation you have here, ma’am! A dear friend of mine – a Miss Whilesmith – lodges in a little room at the top of a house in Queen’s square in Bath – a room much like your own, Mrs Delgado – and she declares that in summer she would not exchange it for the best house in the city – for she catches the breezes that nobody else gets and is perfectly cool when great people stifle in their rich apartments. And she has everything so neat and tidy and just to hand, whenever she wants it. And her only complaint is that the girl from the second back pair is always putting hot kettles on the staircase – which, as you know Mrs Delgado – can be so very displeasing if you chance to strike your foot against one of them. Do you suffer much inconvenience from the staircase, ma’am?”

There was a silence. Or rather some moments passed filled with nothing but the breathing of fifty cats.

Dr Greysteel dabbed at his sweating brow with his handkerchief and shifted about inside his clothes. “We are here, ma’am,” he began, “at the particular request of Mc Kean of Aberdeenshire. He wishes to be remembered to you. He hopes that you are well and sends every good wish for your future health.”

Dr Greysteel spoke rather louder than usual, for he had begun to suspect that the old lady was deaf. This had no other effect, however, than to disturb the cats, many of which began to stalk around the room, brushing against each other and sending up sparks into the twilight air. A black cat dropped from somewhere or other on to the back of Dr Greysteel’s chair and walked it as if it were a tightrope.

Dr Greysteel took a moment to recover himself and then said, “May we take back some report of your health and situation to Mr McKean, ma’am?”

But the old lady said nothing.

Miss Greysteel was next. “I am glad, ma’am,” she said, “to see you so well provided with good friends. They must be a great comfort to you. That little honey-coloured puss at your feet – what an elegant form she has! And such a dainty way of washing her face! What do you call her?”