A
sense of power came to him. He did not ask whether the power made for
evil or for good. Simply, he was inclined to glory in it, as a man
glories in his recovered strength when he wakes from a long sleep
following fatigue. Cuckoo, with feeble hands, seemed tugging to hold back
this power, with feeble voice seemed crying against it as a deadly thing.
And Julian, though he strove to console her, scarcely sympathized with
her fully. He could not, if he would, be quite unhappy to-day. Only in
Cuckoo's grief he began to read a curious legend. In her tears there was
a passion, in her anger a vehemence that could only spring from the
depths of a nature. Julian began to suspect that through all her sins
and degradations this girl, his lady of the feathers, had managed to
keep shut one door, though all the others had been ruthlessly opened.
And beyond this door was surely that holy of holies, an unspoiled woman's
heart. From what other dwelling could rush forth such a passion for a
man's respect, such a fury to be rightly and chivalrously considered? As
he half vaguely realized something of the true position of Cuckoo and of
himself, Julian felt stirred by the wonder of life, in which such strange
blossoms flower out of the very dust.
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