He was arming her for the battle. But he dreamed of weapons,
not of rations, like many an enthusiast. He forgot that the soldier must
be fed as well as armed. He said to Cuckoo: "Fight! Use your woman's wit;
use your heart; wake up, and throw yourself into this battle." And she,
filled with determination, and with a puzzled, pent ardour to do
something, did not know what to do except--starve. So she began to
starve for Julian's sake, and because the doctor had fired her heart.
He had said: "Do what Julian asked you to do, and show Julian that you
have done it." But something within Cuckoo forbade her to fulfil this
last injunction. She could give up the street, but an extraordinary
shyness, false shame, and awkwardness had so far prevented her from
letting Julian know it. If he knew it, he would understand what it meant
for her, and would force money on her, and Cuckoo, having once made up
her mind that money and Julian should never be linked together in her
relations with him, stuck to secrecy on this subject with her normal dull
pertinacity. So matters move slowly towards a deadlock. The lady of the
feathers did not neglect the pawnshop. Her few trinkets went there very
soon. Then things that were not trinkets, that green evening dress, for
instance, the imitation lace, and one day a sale took place.
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