At last--perhaps it was owing to the unusual heat of the night--Cuckoo
became so over-fatigued that she was scarcely conscious what she was
doing. Her smile was utterly devoid of meaning, and had she been suddenly
asked, she could not have told whether she was at the Regent Street
end of Piccadilly, at Hyde Park Corner, or midway between the two.
Once more there was a block. The people were pressed, or surged of
their own will, together, and Cuckoo found herself leaning against
some stranger. This sudden support gave to her an equally sudden
knowledge of the extent to which she was fatigued, and when the block
ceased and the stranger--unconscious that he was being used as a species
of pillow--moved away, Cuckoo almost fell to the ground. Stretching
out her hands to save herself, she caught hold of a man's arm, and as
she did so her eyes moved to his face. It was Julian, and, before her
grasp had time to fix all his attention on her, Cuckoo saw why he was in
Piccadilly. In an instant all her lassitude was gone; all the fatigue, so
passionless and complete, vanished. An extraordinary warmth, that of
fire, not of summer, swept into her heart. She stood still and trembled,
as if from the accession of the abrupt strength that flows from an energy
purely nervous.
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