At last--perhaps it was owing to the unusual heat of the night--Cuckoo
became so over-fatigued that she was scarcely conscious what she was
doing. Her smile was utterly devoid of meaning, and had she been suddenly
asked, she could not have told whether she was at the Regent Street
end of Piccadilly, at Hyde Park Corner, or midway between the two.
Once more there was a block. The people were pressed, or surged of
their own will, together, and Cuckoo found herself leaning against
some stranger. This sudden support gave to her an equally sudden
knowledge of the extent to which she was fatigued, and when the block
ceased and the stranger--unconscious that he was being used as a species
of pillow--moved away, Cuckoo almost fell to the ground. Stretching
out her hands to save herself, she caught hold of a man's arm, and as
she did so her eyes moved to his face. It was Julian, and, before her
grasp had time to fix all his attention on her, Cuckoo saw why he was in
Piccadilly. In an instant all her lassitude was gone; all the fatigue, so
passionless and complete, vanished. An extraordinary warmth, that of
fire, not of summer, swept into her heart. She stood still and trembled,
as if from the accession of the abrupt strength that flows from an energy
purely nervous.
"Hulloh, Cuckoo!" Julian said.
She nodded at him. He looked down at her, not quite knowing what to say,
for he knew, by this time, that she objected to any hint from him on the
subject of her proceedings of the night. That was ignored between them,
and when they met the situation was that of a lodger in the Marylebone
Road holding friendly intercourse with a dweller in Mayfair, nothing more
and nothing less.
"Taking a stroll?" Julian said at last. "Isn't it a lovely night?"
"Yes. I say, I'm tired," she answered.
"Shall I take you somewhere?" he asked.
"Yes, do," she said.
They moved towards the Circus.
"Where shall we go?" Julian said. "Have you any pet place?"
"I don't know--oh, the Monico," she replied.
The restaurant was right in front of them. They dodged across to the
island, thence to the opposite pavement, and passed in silently. The
outer hall was thronged with people. So was the long inner room, and
for a moment they stood in the doorway looking for a table. At length
Julian caught sight of an empty one far down under the clock at the end.
They made their way to it and sat down.
"What will you have?" Julian asked Cuckoo.
She considered, sinking back on the plush settee.
"A glass of stout, I think, and--"
"And a bun," he interposed, smiling in recollection of their first
interview.
But Cuckoo did not smile or seem to recognize the allusion.
"Please, I'll have a sandwich," she said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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