"The children will mind, but they
need not know," had been the last word on the matter.
The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the
course of a few months he considered that he should have known their
names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced to
their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as the
long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over which
their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in
India--that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children,
beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys,
carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed he
was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden
from their knowledge.
The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it was
meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet Octavian felt
some qualms when his share of the violence was ended. The little cat,
headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had raced unfriended from
shelter to shelter, and its end had been rather piteous.
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