Part 41 (1/2)

”Oh, but you must,” he said. ”Have some of these sugar-biscuits.”

She took some from him and began to sip and munch steadily, but still in silence. Julian began to fear that the festival must be a dire failure, for her obvious and extreme constraint affected him, and he was also seized with an absurd sense of shyness in the presence of Valentine, and, instead of talking, found himself immersed in a boyish anxiety as to Valentine's att.i.tude of mind towards the girl. He looked at Cuckoo in the firelight as she mutely ate and drank, and was all at once profoundly conscious of the dreary vulgarity of her appearance, against which even her original prettiness and her present youth fought in vain. Her hat cast a monstrous shadow upon the wall, a shadow so distorted and appalling that Julian almost grew red as he observed it, and felt that Valentine was probably observing it also. He wished poor Cuckoo had left the crying scarlet gown at home, and those black lozenges, which were suited to the pavement of the hall of a financier. Everything she had on expressed a mind such as Valentine must become acquainted with in amazement, and have intercourse with in sorrow. The pathetic side of this preposterous feathered and bugled degradation he would fail to see.

Julian felt painfully certain of this. All the details of the woman would offend him, who was so alive to the value of fine details in life. He must surely be wondering with all his soul how Julian could ever have contemplated continuing the intercourse with Cuckoo which had been begun for a definite purpose already accomplished. Yet Julian's feeling of friends.h.i.+p towards this rouged scarecrow with the pathetic eyes and the anxious hands did not diminish as he blushed for her, but rather increased, fed, it seemed, by the discordant trifles in which her soul moved as in a maze. He was so much in the thrall of thought that he had become quite unconscious of the awkwardness of the brooding silence, when he heard Valentine's voice say:

”Are you fond of art, Miss Bright?”

The question sounded as if addressed to some society woman at home in Melbury Road. Addressed to Cuckoo it was entirely absurd, and Julian glanced at Valentine to deprecate the gay sarcasm which he suspected.

But Valentine's face disarmed him, it was so gravely and serenely polite.

”Eh?” said Cuckoo.

”Are you fond of art? or do you prefer literature?”

”I don't know,” she said nervously.

”Or perhaps music?”

”I like singing,” she said. ”And the organs.”

”Do sing us something, Val,” Julian said, to create a diversion.

But Valentine shook his head.

”Not to-day. I have got a cold in my throat.”

”Well, then, play something.”

But Valentine did not seem to hear the last request. He had turned again to Cuckoo, who visibly s.h.i.+ed away from him, and clattered the teacup and saucer, which she held like one alarmed.

”Music is a great art,” he said persuasively. ”And appeals essentially to one's emotions. I am certain now that you are emotional.”

”I don't know, I'm sure,” she said, with an effort at self-confidence.

”You feel strongly, whether it be love or hate.”

This last remark seemed to reach her, even to stir her to something more definite than mere _mauvaise honte_. She glanced quickly from Julian to Valentine.

”Love and hate,” she responded. ”Yes, that's it; I could feel them both.

You're right there, my d--, I mean yes.”

And again she looked from one young man to the other. She had put up her veil, which was stretched in a bunched-up ma.s.s across her powdered forehead, and Julian had an odd fancy that in the firelight he saw upon her haggard young face the rapid and fleeting expression of the two violently opposed emotions of which she spoke. Her face, turned upon him, seemed to s.h.i.+ne with a queer, almost with a ludicrous, vehemence of yearning which might mean pa.s.sion. This flashed into the sudden frown of a young harridan as her eyes travelled on to Valentine. But the frown died quickly, and she looked downcast, and sat biting her thin lips, and crumbling a biscuit into the tiny blue and white china plate upon her knee.

”And do you give way to your impulses?” Valentine continued, still very gravely.

”What?”

”Do you express what you feel?”