Despite his comparatively dull
mood and tendency to a calm of self-satisfaction in the Marylebone Road,
Julian could not be wholly unmoved by the passion of Cuckoo's regret, nor
entirely unaware that it was a passion in which he must have some share,
whether now or at some more distant time, when the thrall of recently
moved senses was weakened, and the numbness really born of excitement
melted in the quiet expansion of a manly and a reasonable calm. His
understanding of her passion, none too definite at first, gave him a
moment's wonder, both at her and at himself. It seemed strange that the
shattered influence of Valentine should be of less account to him who had
known and loved it than to her who had never known it. It seemed stranger
still that the streets--those wolves which tear one by one the rags of
good from human nature, till it stands naked and tearless beneath the
lamps, which are the eyes of the wolves--stranger that those streets
should have left to one of their children a veil so bridal and so
beautiful as that which hung round Cuckoo when she wept. Julian was
almost driven to believe that sin and purity can dwell together in one
woman, yet never have intercourse. Yet he knew that to be impossible.
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