She faded abruptly from anger and violence into
fatigue, always closely accompanied by fear.
"I'm awfully tired to-night," she said. "Please do go! I'm home because
I'm tired."
"The walk from Harley Street was too much for you. You shouldn't make
such exertions."
For the first time a sinister note rang in his voice.
"I shall go where I like," Cuckoo answered, and this time with some real
sturdiness of manner. "It ain't nothin' to you where I go, nor what I
do."
"How can you tell that?"
She laid her chin in the upturned palms of her two hands, planting her
elbows on her knees.
"How can it be?" she said. "I'm nothin' to you, nor I ain't going to be
either."
"That's what you say."
"And it's God's truth too!" she cried again with violence, as the sense
of Valentine's inflexible power grew in her.
"I'm going to smoke if you will allow me," Valentine said.
Slowly he drew out and lit a cigarette, Cuckoo neither refusing nor
permitting it. With protruding lips he threw the light smoke round him.
Then speaking through it he said:
"Tell me why you go to Harley Street."
"I ain't goin' to talk to you."
"Tell me why. It lies out of your beat; it's a respectable thoroughfare."
The words were said to sting.
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