Let the angelus bell
ring; he no longer heard it. Let the drone of prayers and praises rise in
a monotonous music by day and by night; he no longer had the will to heed
them. For there was another music in his ears. Soon it would be in his
heart. Imagine a Trappist suddenly transported from the desert of his
long silence to a gay _plage_ on which a brass band was playing. Julian
was that Trappist in mind. And though he knew Cuckoo was sobbing at his
back, and though his heart held a sense of pity for her trouble, yet he
heard her grief with a strange cruelty, at which he wondered, without
being able to soften it. That afternoon it seemed to him useless for
anybody to cry. No grief was quite worth tears. The violence of life was
present with him, gave him light and blinded him at the same time. He
found delight in the thought of violence, because it held action in its
grasp. Even cruelty was worth something. Was he cruel to Cuckoo?
He turned from the window and looked at her, with the observation of a
nature not generally his own. He noted the desolation of her hair, and he
noted, too, that she wore the gown he had given to her. Would she have
put it on if she had hated him as she said she did? Somehow it scarcely
seemed to suit her to-day.
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