Is the lady of the feathers disconsolate?"
The doctor did not trust himself to reply, but was silent, plotting
another meeting to sit. For he had begun, still magic-bound perhaps, to
divine some possible salvation in that act which he had once condemned,
led, as he thought, by knowledge and by experience, of the nervous system
forsooth! Now he was led unscientifically by pure feeling, like a child
by a warm, close hand. The instinct that had guided Cuckoo seemed to
stretch out fingers to him. He must respond. But how to reach Julian?
While he strove to solve this problem it was solved for him in a manner
utterly surprising to him, although engineered by words of his.
Cuckoo wrought a strange work with the skeleton hands of hunger and of
pain.
CHAPTER VI
THE SELLING OF JESSIE
One chill morning of earliest February, a stirring of Jessie at the foot
of her bed wakened Cuckoo from a short and uneasy sleep. She opened her
eyes to the faint light that filtered through the green Venetian blind.
Jessie moved again, slowly rotating like a drowsy top, then suddenly
dropped into the warm centre of a nest of bedclothes, breathing a big
dog-sigh of satisfaction that shook her tiny frame. She slept. But she
had wakened her mistress, who lay with her head resting on one hand,
deep in thought while the day grew outside.
Pages:
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701