His
energies were employed. Perhaps he had forgotten Cuckoo and her empty
mornings. Almost for the first time in her life the lady of the feathers
definitely longed for a legitimate occupation. How she could have flown
at it to-day. But already the bright mood was fading. It could not last
in such an atmosphere. As Cuckoo had said, she could fight better than
she could pray. But it seemed to her, after a while, that there was only
room in this cheerless, dark house to pray, no room at all to fight. She
tried reading yesterday's evening paper, left on the horsehair sofa by
Julian. But reading had never been a favourite occupation of hers, and
to-day she wanted to save Julian, to make him love her, and so to win him
from Valentine. She did not want to sit in the twilight of a winter's day
reading about people she had never seen, things she did not understand.
And she threw the paper down.
To make Julian love her. Cuckoo flushed, yes, even sitting there quite
alone, for Jessie had retired to the warmth of the bedroom blankets, as
she said it in her mind. The doctor had told her to do so. Her heart had
told her to try to do it long ago. But she trusted the doctor and she did
not trust her heart. And how could she trust her power to make Julian
love her? Cuckoo had once known very well how to make a man desire her.
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