In that moment the lady of the feathers felt
as if she were conscious of a new companion, a companion full of some
intensity towards her, some anxiety about her, anxious and brilliant as a
flame is, vital, keen, blazing, intense. Although she could not define
her sensation thus, that lack of analytical power could not deprive her
of it. She knew that her vision became clearer, that her mind became
brighter, that a light illumined her, that she was, for the moment,
greater than herself. But Valentine did not know it. He looked towards
the sofa and saw spread upon it a thin, painted, haggard young creature
curled into a position at once passionate, languid, and merely awkward,
with relentless, thickly tangled hair, staring eyes, and half-opened
lips, glowering in rouged stupidity and a coarseness of the gutter. He
was a philosopher, with a beauty of the stars and of snows, with a
refinement, white in its brilliance. She was an image of Regent Street,
a ghastly idol of the town; and he was telling her strange things that
she could never comprehend, in a jargon that was to her as Greek or as
Hebrew. It was too absurd. Yet he loved to tell her, and he could
scarcely tell why he loved it.
"Go on," said the lady of the feathers.
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