Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2 ee MARY ELIZABETH COUNSELMAN Her voice was a purring, throaty contralto, very pleasant, with a slight accent—not French, not anything I had ever heard. The landlady ‘scowled. “But Mr. Harper here just tells me——” | “Pm sorry,” I broke in hastily. “It must have been a stray cat. I saw it in your doorway, and naturally I thought ” I floundered helplessly. That fixed green stare made me forget what I was trying to say. “It iss all r-right,” she murmured, and went upstairs to her room without another word. I followed suit in a moment; and there in the open door she stood as if waiting for me, motionless, silent, fixing me with her unwinking eyes. “I’m terribly sorry,” I began again, trying not to meet that disconcerting catlike gaze. “You see, I put the cat - Suddenly she moved toward me, closing her eyes slightly like a pleased cat—and to my utter consternation, rubbed her head gently against my shoul- der! My first thought was that this was merely an amusing trick of a clever street-woman, the advances of a fille de joie a little less blatant than those of her boldly dressed, loud-voiced sisters. : Then suddenly the feeling swept over me like a cold draft that she was ~ Not a woman at all, that she was not even a mortal=that she was a cat! — Moreover, as I drew myself away from her and entered my room queerly shaken, I ‘could have sworn I heard, from the depths of that pale throat, the purring of a cat! | I strode across the room and stood a moment staring out the window, | trying to collect my scattered wits, when I felt’ something rubbing against my ankle. It was the white cat, arching its furry back and purring loudly. _I was in no mood just then for anything resembling a cat, but its gentle wiles won me in spite of myself and I began playing with it. I rolled a ball of cord across the room and the animal bounded after it, tapping it playfully. soon I had forgotten my upsetting encounter with Mademoiselle Chatte. _ . Blanche and was having quite a time with my furry visitor, when our romp was interrupted by a rap on my door and a familiar call, announcing Mrs, Bates. : : As she came in, her smile vanished. “Oh, this is your white cat, eh? I ”* never liked the critters. . . . Scat!” , As the animal crouched motionless with fear, the old lady seized it quickly by the scruff of its neck and dropped it from my window into the muddy alley below. “There! Maybe it'll go away now.” 3 She talked for a moment, collected her rent, and was standing in my open door for a parting word, when beyond her in the hall I saw Mademoiselle Chatte-Blanche. : She was strangely disheveled and spattered with mud ; and she was direct- ‘ : (9) ; 7 I aa eee SES ae — Comichooks.coiie