Cuckoo woke out of that reverie, which seemed so chilly, so terrible
even. She glanced at Julian, and her eyes were again full of tears. He
was standing, and he bent down to her with his two hands resting upon the
marble of the table. He bent down and then suddenly stooped lower, lower,
almost glaring into her eyes. She went back in her seat a little, half
frightened.
"What's it?" she murmured.
But Julian only remained fixedly looking into her eyes. In the pool of
the tears of them he saw two tiny shadowy flames, flickering, as he
thought, but quite clear, distinct, unmistakable. And there came a thick
beating in his side. His heart beat hard. Each time he had seen the
vision of the flame he had been instantly impressed with a sense of
strange mystery, as if at the vision of some holy thing, a flame upon a
prayer-blessed altar, a flame ascending from a tear-washed sacrifice.
And now he saw this thing that he fancied holy burning behind the tears
in Cuckoo's eyes!
Cuckoo got up.
"Come on," she said, abruptly.
Julian followed her out of the café.
The dream of the moon was with them as they came to the entrance, clear
as a quiet soul, directly above them in a clear sky. Julian looked up at
it, but Cuckoo looked, with eyes that were almost sullen, at the night
panorama of the Circus. They waited a moment on the step. Julian was
lighting a cigar, and many other voluble men, most of them French or
Italian, were doing likewise. Having lighted it, and given a strong puff
or two, Julian said to Cuckoo:
"Shall I drive you home?"
"I ain't going home yet," she replied doggedly. "Are you?"
He hesitated.
"Are you, or aren't you?" she reiterated.
While she spoke, in her voice that was often a little hoarse, a young
voice with a thread in it, he realized that somehow she--painted sinner
as she was--had managed to make him ashamed of himself. Or was it that an
awe had come to his soul with that strange flame? In any case his mood
had risen from the old night mood of a young man to something higher,
something that could not be satisfied in the sordid way of the world.
"I think I shall go home," he said.
"Right," she answered, and for the first time there was an accent of
pleasure in her voice.
"But I'll walk a little way with you first," he added.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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