The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from the bed.  “You will need a tray or something,” said she.  “I suppose you can sit up against your pillows?  I’ll bring a tray and you can hold it on your knees and eat from it.”  She spoke in a tone of very deliberate indifference and detachment.  There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in it, but nothing could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely.  As the girl’s extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its light, so the sound of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and hushed resonance like a temple bell muffled in velvet.  “I must bring something to eat, too,” she said.  “Would you prefer croissants or brioches or plain bread-and-butter?  You might as well have what you like.”

“Thank you!” said Ste. Marie.  “It doesn’t matter.  Anything.  You are most kind.  You are Hebe, Mademoiselle, server of feasts.”  The girl turned her head for a moment and looked at him with some surprise.

“If I am not mistaken,” she said, “Hebe served to gods.”  Then she went out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh behind her.  She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her head.  She had seized the rash opening without an instant’s hesitation.

The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.

“Get out!” cried Ste. Marie.  “Va t’en, sale petit animal!  Go and eat birds!  That’s my coffee.  Va!  Sauve toi!  He, voleur que tu es!” He sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing within reach.

The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table.  Ste. Marie shouted and made horrible threats.  He waved an impotent pillow, not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table’s entire contents, but the black cat did not even glance toward him.  It smelled the coffee, sneezed over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very daintily, pausing often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats disapprove of hot dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.

There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation.  Mlle. O’Hara came in, breathing terrible threats.

“Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?” she cried.  “I hope not.”  But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood in mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and hanging upon its whiskers.

“I did what I could, Mademoiselle,” said Ste. Marie, “but there was nothing to throw.  I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble.”

“It is nothing,” said she.  “I will bring some more coffee, only it will take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh.”  She made as if she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave once more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.