one else, for that
matter--well and good. If not, I am not much concerned. Surely
you notice the animal--and not merely the animal, but definite
animals--reproduced in man. There are men whose whole demeanour suggests
the monkey. I have met women who in manner, appearance, and even
character, were intensely like cats."

I uttered a slight exclamation, which did not interrupt him.

"Now, I have made a minute study of cats. Of all animals they interest
me the most. They have less apparent intensity, less uttered passion,
than dogs, but in my opinion more character. Their subtlety is
extraordinary, their sensitiveness wonderful. Will you understand me
when I say that all dogs are men, all cats women? That remark expresses
the difference between them."

He paused a moment.

"Go on--go on," I said, leaning forward, with my eyes fixed upon his
keen, puckered face.

He seemed pleased with my suddenly-aroused interest..

"Cats are as subtle and as difficult to understand as the most complex
woman, and almost as full of intuitions. If they have been well treated,
there is often a certain gracious, condescending suavity in their
demeanour at first, even towards a total stranger; but if that stranger
is ill disposed toward them, they seem instinctively to read his soul,
and they are in arms directly. Yet they dissemble their fears in a cold
indifference and reserve. They do not take action: they merely abstain
from action. They withdraw the soul that has peeped out, as they can
withdraw their claws into the pads upon their feet. They do not show
fight as a dog might, they do not become aggressive, nor do they whine
and put their tails between their legs. They are simply on guard,
watchful, mistrustful. Is not all this woman?"

"Possibly," I answered, with a painful effort to assume indifference.

"A woman intuitively knows who is her friend and who is her enemy--so
long, at least, as her heart is not engaged; then she runs wild, I
allow. A woman---- But I need not pursue the parallel. Besides, perhaps
it is scarcely to the point, for my object is not to bolster up an
absurd contention that all women have the souls of cats. No; but I have
met women so strangely like cats that their souls have, as I said before
souls do, coloured their bodies in actions. They have had the very look
of cats in their faces. They have moved like them. Their demeanour has
been patently and strongly feline. Now, I see nothing ridiculous in the