Julian, like a man in an excited dream, followed Valentine to the bottom of the broad stairs, on, through the blooming masses of flowers, to the entrance. Two or three cabs were waiting. Valentine put Cuckoo into one. She had not spoken a word, and was trembling as if with fear. "Get in, Julian." Julian obeyed, and Valentine, standing on the pavement, leaned forward and whispered to him: "Take her home, Julian." Suddenly Julian shouted Cuckoo's address to the cabman hoarsely. The cab drove away. Valentine walked slowly towards Piccadilly Circus, whistling softly, "I want you, my honey; yes, I do." BOOK III--THE LADY OF THE FEATHERS CHAPTER I THE LADY OF THE FEATHERS The thin afternoon light of an indefinite spring day shone over the Marylebone Road. A heavy warmth was in the air, and the weather was peculiarly windless, but the sun only shone fitfully, and the street looked sulky. The faces of the passers-by were hot and weary. Women trailed along under the weight of their parcels, and men returned from work grimmer than usual, and wondering almost with a fretfulness of passion why they were born predestined to toil. The cabmen about Baker Street Station dozed with nodding heads upon their perches, and the omnibus conductors forgot to chaff, and collected their tolls with a mechanical deliberation. At the crossings the policemen, helpless in their uniforms of the winter, became dictatorial more readily than on cooler days. Some sorts of weather incline every one to temper or to depression. The day after the boat-race lay under a malign spell. It seemed to feel all the weariness of reaction, and to fold all men and women in the embrace of its lassitude and heavy hopelessness. At number 400, Jessie whined pitifully in her basket, and her arched back quivered perpetually as her minute body expanded and contracted in the effort of breathing. Her beady eyes were open and fixed furtively upon her mistress, as if in inquiry or alarm, and her whole soul was whirling in a turmoil set in motion by the first slap she had ever received in gravity at the hands of Cuckoo. Jessie's inner nature was stung by that slap. It knocked her world over, like a doll hit by a child. Her universe lay prone upon its back.