Robert W. Chambers

“ The cat had finished her toilet and now, springing softly to the floor, went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping the garter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said: “There is a name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a pretty name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman’s name, Elven is the name of a town. In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. ”

“ What was it that prevented your meditated flight when I turned from my canvas to encounter your yellow eyes? Are you a Latin Quarter cat as I am a Latin Quarter man? And why do you wear a rose-colored flowered garter buckled about your neck?” The cat had climbed into his lap and now sat purring as he passed his hand over her thin coat.
“Excuse me,” he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with her purring, “if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on this rose-colored garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver clasp. For the clasp is silver ”

“ But then again I notice—I notice most things—that the garter is capable of being much enlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which I count five, are proof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, as though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems to argue a well-rounded form.”
The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside.
He murmured on: “Why should your mistress decorate you with an article most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. ”