But my hot rage cooled to an icy haughtiness, and, though it took a weary, tedious long time, I kept my temper and my demeanor, look, tone and word, managed to convey to him, even through the thick armor of his self-conceit, that he was not welcome.

He rose, said farewell and waddled off to the postern.

As soon as he was outside, more rapidly than I had moved since I was felled in the roadside affray, I walked to that door and made sure that it was bolted.
I was strolling unhurriedly back to the seat I had left and was perhaps half way to it, when I heard, loud and clear, the long-drawn, blood- curdling hunting-squall of Nemestronia's pet leopard; heard in it more of menace, more of adult ferocity, more of the horrible joy of the power to kill than I had ever heard before.
Instantly I comprehended what had happened.

Either Agathemer when he took off my tray or Vedia when she escaped had passed through the wild-garden (probably it had been Vedia, who would not know that the leopard was confined there), and had left a door imperfectly closed.

The leopard, which might have been asleep, under the shrubberies and invisible, had roused and had passed through the unfastened door up into the terrace- garden.