She hadn't been playing for more than a minute or two when she realized that the cat had again moved, and was now back in its old place on the sofa. She'd been watching her hands at the time, and presumably that was why she hadn't even noticed its going; all the same, it must have been an extremely swift and silent move. The cat was still staring at her, still apparently attending closely to the music, and yet it seemed to Louisa that there was not now the same rapturous enthusiasm there'd been during the previous piece, the Liszt. In addition, the act of leaving the stool and returning to the sofa appeared in itself to be a mild but positive gesture of disappointment.
'What's the matter?' she asked when it was over. 'What's wrong with Schumann? What's so marvellous about Liszt?' The cat looked straight back at her with those yellow eyes that had small jet-black bars lying vertically in their centres.
This, she told herself, is really beginning to get interesting - a trifle spooky, too, when she came to think of it. But one look at the cat sitting there on the sofa, so bright and attentive, so obviously waiting for more music, quickly reassured her.
'All right,' she said. 'I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to alter my programme specially for you. You seem to like Liszt so much, I'll give you another.'
She hesitated, searching her memory for a good Liszt; then softly she began to play one of the twelve little pieces from Der Weihnachtsbaum. She was now watching the cat very closely, and the first thing she noticed was that the whiskers again began to twitch. It jumped down to the carpet, stood still a moment, inclining its head, quivering with excitement, and then, with a slow, silky stride, it walked around the piano, hopped up on the stool, and sat down beside her.
They were in the middle of all this when Edward came in from the garden.
'Edward!' Louisa cried, jumping up. 'Oh, Edward, darling! Listen to this! Listen what's happened!'
'What is it now?' he said. 'I'd like some tea.' He had one of those narrow, sharp-nosed, faintly magenta faces, and the sweat was making it shine as though it were a long wet grape.
'It's the cat!' Louisa cried, pointing to it sitting quietly on the piano stool. 'Just wait till you hear what's happened!'
'I thought I told you to take it to the police.'
'But, Edward, listen to me. This is terribly exciting. This is a musical cat.'
'Oh, yes?'
'This cat can appreciate music, and it can understand it too.'
'Now stop this nonsense, Louisa, and for God's sake let's have some tea. I'm hot and tired from cutting brambles and building bonfires.' He sat down in an armchair, took a cigarette from a box beside him, and lit it with an immense patent lighter that stood near the box.
'What you don't understand,' Louisa said, 'is that something extremely exciting has been happening here in our own house while you were out, something that may even be... well... almost momentous.'
'I'm quite sure of that.'
'Edward, please!'
Louisa was standing by the piano, her little pink face pinker than ever, a scarlet rose high up on each cheek. 'If you want to know,' she said, 'I'll tell you what I think.'
'I'm listening, dear.'
'I think it might be possible that we are at this moment sitting in the presence of -' She stopped, as though suddenly sensing the absurdity of the thought.
'Yes?'
'You may think it silly, Edward, but it's honestly what I think.'
'In the presence of whom, for heaven's sake?'
'Of Franz Liszt himself!'
Her husband took a long slow pull at his cigarette and blew the smoke up at the ceiling. He had the tight-skinned, concave cheeks of a man who has worn a full set of dentures for many years, and every time he sucked at a cigarette, the cheeks went in even more, and the bones of his face stood out like a skeleton's. 'I don't get you,' he said.
'Edward, listen to me. From what I've seen this afternoon with my own eyes, it really looks as though this might be some sort of a reincarnation.'
'You mean this lousy cat?'
'Don't talk like that, dear, please.'
'You're not ill, are you, Louisa?'
'I'm perfectly all right, thank you very much. I'm a bit confused - I don't mind admitting it, but who wouldn't be after what's just happened? Edward, I swear to you -'