“Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautiful⁠—your mistress,” he murmured drowsily, “and her hair is heavy as burnished gold. I could paint her⁠—not on canvas⁠—for I should need shades and tones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow. I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such colours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skies untroubled by a cloud⁠—the skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses from the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snowdrifts from mountains which tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;⁠—oh, much higher than our moon here⁠—the crystal moons of dreamland. She is⁠—very⁠—beautiful, your mistress.”

The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped.

The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, her paws relaxed and limp.