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.
And Cuckoo's? She was sitting in the one arm-chair with her thin hands
folded in her lap. She wore the black dress given to her by Julian, but
she did not look prepared to go out, for her hair was standing up over
her head in violent disorder, her cheeks were haggard and unwashed, and
her boots--still muddy from the previous night's promenading--stood
in a corner near the grate in the first position, as if directed by
a dancing-mistress.
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