But-”

“But what?” said Edna.

“But it looked very much larger than an owl,” said Jack.

“It was your fancy,” said Edna. “It was one of those beastly cats that did it.”

This point was discussed very frequently during the next few days. Everybody was consulted, and everybody had an opinion. Jack might have been a little doubtful at first, for he had caught only the briefest glimpse as the creature crossed the moon, but opposition made him more certain, and the discussions sometimes got rather heated.

“Charlie says it was all your imagination,” said Edna. “He says no owl would ever attack a parrot.”

“How the devil does he know?” said Jack. “Besides, I said it was bigger than an owl.”

“He says that shows you imagine things,” said Edna.

“Perhaps he would like me to think I do,” said Jack. “Perhaps you both would.”

“Oh, Jack!” cried Edna. She was deeply hurt, and not without reason, for it showed that Jack was still thinking of a ridiculous mistake he had made, a real mistake, of the sort that young husbands sometimes do make, when they come suddenly into a room and people are startled without any reason for it. Charlie was young and free and easy and good-looking, and he would put his hand on your shoulder without even thinking about it, and nobody minded.

“I should not have said that,” said Jack.

“No, indeed you shouldn’t,” said Edna, and she was right.

The parrot said nothing at all. All these days, he had been moping and ailing, and seemed to have forgotten even how to ask for sugar. He only groaned and moaned to himself, ruffled up his feathers, and every now and then shook his head in the most rueful, miserable way you can possibly imagine.

One day, however, when Jack came home from work, Edna put her finger to her lips and beckoned him to the window. “Watch Tom,” she whispered.

Jack peered out. There was the old bird, lugubriously climbing down from his perch and picking some dead stalks from the vine, which he carried up till he gained a corner where the balustrade ran into the wall, and added his gatherings to others that were already there. He trod round and round, twisted his stalks in and out, and, always with the same doleful expression, paid great attention to the nice disposition of a feather or two, a piece of wool, a fragment of cellophane. There was no doubt about it.

“There’s no doubt about it,” said Jack.

“He’s making a nest!” cried Edna.

“He!” cried Jack. “He! I like that. The old imposter! The old male impersonator! She’s going to lay an egg. Thomasina—that’s her name from now on.”

Thomasina it was.