"Oh yes, you do," she rejoined. Then after a moment's silence, she added,
with bitter emphasis, and a movement of her hand in the direction of the
door:
"You out in that crowd, and doing the same as all of them?"
As she said the words tears started under her blackened eyelashes.
If Julian had been taken aback before she spoke the last sentence, he
was ten times more astonished now. The whole situation struck him as
unexampled, and but for something so passionate in the girl's manner
that it overrode the natural feeling of the moment, his sense of humour
must have moved him to a smile. It was strange indeed to sit at midnight
under the electric moons of the Monico, and to be passionately condemned
for dissipation by a girl with a painted face, dyed hair, and that
terribly unmistakable imprint of the streets. But Julian could not smile.
Something in Cuckoo's demeanour, something so vehement and so unconscious
as to be not far from dignity, impressed him and took him well beyond the
gates of laughter.
"Why--but you were out in the crowd too," he said.
"I!" she said sharply, and with a touch of scathing contempt for
herself, yet impatient, too, of any introduction of her entity into the
discussion; "of course I've got to be there.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356