Part 89 (1/2)

”A cab!” rejoined Mrs. Brigg, ascending the dark stairs all the time she was speaking. ”And what do you want with cabs, I should like to know? Who pays for 'em, that's what I say; who's to do it?”

Her grey head hove in sight.

”Where are you going? Piccadilly?”

”No; get the whistle.”

”What--and no hat!”

She was evidently impressed.

”A toff is it?” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, obviously appeased. ”Well! so long as I get the rent I--”

With a white glare Cuckoo seized the whistle from her claw, and in a moment was driving away through the snow.

Mrs. Brigg trotted back to the kitchen decidedly relieved. Cuckoo's suddenly altered mode of life had tried her greatly. The girl had taken to going out in the day and staying at home at night. Simultaneously with this changed _regime_ her funds had evidently become low. She had begun to live less well, to watch more keenly than of old the condition in which her commons went down to the kitchen and returned from it on the advent of the next meal. By various little symptoms the landlady knew that her lodger was getting hard up. Yet no amount of badgering and argument would induce Cuckoo to say why she sat indoors at night.

She acknowledged that she was not ill. Mrs. Brigg had been seriously exercised. But now her old heart was glad. Cuckoo was, perhaps, mounting into higher circles, circles in which hats were not worn during the evening. And as Mrs. Brigg entered her nethermost h.e.l.l she broke into a thin, quavering song:

”In 'er 'air she wore a white cam-eeiyer, Dark blue was the colour of 'er heye.”

It was her song of praise. She always sang it on great occasions.

When the lady of the feathers reached Victoria Street she found the little party already a.s.sembled. Valentine met her ceremoniously in the violet-scented hall and helped her to slide out of her jacket. His glance upon the imitation lace was quick and gay, but Cuckoo did not see it. She was gazing at the flowers, and when she entered the drawing-room and found herself in the midst of the orchids, the West Indian flowers and the palms, her astonishment knew no bounds.

”I never!” she murmured under her breath.

Then she forgot the flowers, having only time to remember to be shy.

Dinner was immediately announced by Wade, whose years of trained discretion could not banish a faint accent of surprise from his voice.

He was, in fact, _bouleverse_ by this celebration of the death of the old year. Valentine offered Cuckoo his arm. She took it awkwardly, with a shooting glance of question at the doctor, who seemed her only spar in this deep social sea. Valentine placed her beneath the bell of violets, and took his seat beside her. Julian was on her other hand, the doctor exactly opposite. Wade presented her with _hors-d'oeuvres._ Cuckoo selected a sardine. She understood sardines, having met them at the Monico. Valentine and the doctor began to talk. Julian ate slowly, and Cuckoo stole a glance at him. His aspect startled her so much that she with difficulty repressed a murmur of astonishment. He had the appearance of one so completely exhausted as to be scarcely alive. Most people, however stupid, however bored, have some air, when in society, of listening even when they do not speak, of giving some sort of attention to those about them, or to the place in which they find themselves. They glance this way and that, however phlegmatically. They bend in attention or lean back in observation. It is seen that they are conscious of their environment. But Julian was engrossed with fatigue. The lids drooped over his eyes. His face wore a leaden hue. Even his lips were colourless. He ate slowly and mechanically till his plate was empty. Then he laid down his fork and remained motionless, his eyes still cast down towards the tablecloth, his two hands laid against the table edge, while the fingers were extended upon the cloth on either side of his plate. Cuckoo looked at him with terror, wondering if he were ill. Then, glancing up, she met the eyes of the doctor. They seemed to bid her take no heed of Julian's condition, and she did not look at him again just then. Trying to control her fears, she listened to Valentine's conversation with the doctor.

”Doctors are sceptics by profession,” she heard him say.

”I believe in individualism too firmly to allow that any beliefs or unbeliefs can be professional, Cresswell.”

”Possibly you are right,” Valentine answered lightly. ”What a pity it is that there is no profession of which all the members at least believe in themselves.”

”Ah; would you enter it?”

”I scarcely think it would be necessary.”

He glanced first at the doctor, then at Cuckoo as he spoke.

”I am thankful to say,” he added in his clear, cool voice, ”that I have no longer either the perpetual timidity of the self-doubter or even the occasional anxiety of the egoist.”

”You have pa.s.sed into a region which even egoism cannot enter.”

”Possibly--the average egoism.”

”The average egoism of the end of the century moves in a very rarefied air.”