We have those years, those
white and empty years, to drown in the waters of Lethe. They are like
monstrous children that should have been strangled almost ere they were
born, white, vacant children. And now, day by day, we are pressing them
down in the waters with our hands. At last they will sink. The waves will
flow over their haggard faces. The waves will sweep them away. Then we
shall be happy. We shall redeem those years on which the locust fed, and
we shall be happy."
"Yes, by God, we shall be happy, we will--we will be happy. Only teach me
to be happy, Valentine, anywhere, anyhow."
"Not with the lady of the feathers. She will not make you happy."
"Cuckoo? No! For she's terribly unhappy herself. Poor old Cuckoo. I
wonder what she's doing now."
"Searching in the snow for her fate," Valentine said, with a sneer.
* * * * *
It was not so. Cuckoo was sitting alone in the little room of the
Marylebone Road looking a new spectre in the face, the spectre of
hunger, only shadowy as yet, scarcely defined, scarcely visible. And
the lady of the feathers wondered, as she gazed, if she and the spectre
must become better acquainted, clasp hands, kiss lips, be day-fellows
and night-fellows.
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