She was
conscious that she had expected something, and something not small. Her
mood had demanded it. But our moods are often like disappointed brigands,
who, having waylaid a pauper, demand with levelled pistols that which the
pauper has so vainly prayed for all his life. Moods come from within.
They are not evoked to dance valses with suitable partners from without.
And so Cuckoo's strong excitement and energy found nothing to dance with.
She sat there growing gradually less alive, and wondering why she had
hastened to get up; why she was fully dressed instead of wrapped in the
usual staring pink dressing-gown with the chiffon cascades down the
front. Mornings were of no use to her--never had been. God might as well
never have included them in the scheme of His days, so far as she was
concerned. But this morning she had thought, had felt--it seemed
impossible that she should feel so unusual and that nothing should
happen. She was ready, but Fate was in bed and asleep. That was really
the gist of the feeling that came over her. She thought of Dr. Levillier,
the man who had set a torch at last to her nature and fired it with a new
ardour. He was at his work in the morning, seeing, speaking to, that
passing line of strangers, who walked on forever through his life.
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