Does your cat lower his/her tail leaving the room?

I noticed something amusing that I hadn't noticed before. I had company this weekend and for the first time my cat seemed at ease around them. We noticed that my cat kept his tail high around us, but the second he walked into the next room, down went his tail. Do cats consciously communicate with their tails? I know their tail is high when they're happy, but there's no way he could be unhappy leaving the room. My sister says she thought it was showing us respect, but I'm surprisingly clueless. The funny thing is, walking towards us from the next room, his tail would already be raised; it was when leaving the room that his tail went down, like literally the second he'd enter the other room. It made me laugh. Is my cat a mooch[emoji]128513[/emoji]?

Cats do communicate quite a bit with their tails!

It may not be that he's mooching, just that he wants to be sure to get you attention, so you know he's happy/eager to see you. Maybe once he's leaving, he's had his attention, so doesn't make a point of keeping his tail up.

I think it also depends on the cat. My brother's cat holds her tail quite high most of the time, as does my Sybil. Random, however, only holds his tail up when he's looking for or getting attention, otherwise he keeps it down. I liken it to how people have different excitement levels - some peopl bounce everywhere, some people just walk.