They sat down. There were no flowers in the room. Valentine explained
that he had remembered Cuckoo's fainting fit and feared its renewal.
"I am afraid you are still scarcely yourself," he added, with a
solicitude that was too elaborate to be agreeable. "You are looking
pale and tired. You are sure to sleep again."
"I'll not sleep to-night," she answered, showing none of her usual fear
of him.
The assertion of her will, her momentary rescue of Julian, Julian's
avowed love for her, his clinging to her as to a refuge--all these
things, so Cuckoo thought, built up in her a great fearlessness. In her
bodily weakness she felt strong. Her faded, weakly frame held now a large
spirit of which she was finely conscious. And she attributed this leaping
spirit, so brave, so intense to these things, these facts of which she
could make a list. She did not know that behind them all there was a
motive power inspiring her, through them perhaps, but of itself. How
often is the power behind the throne unsuspected, unheeded. Cuckoo did
not recognize it in this crisis, although there had been moments in the
past when the murmur of its voice had stolen upon her and stirred her to
wonder and to perturdation. And Valentine, to whom the combat came, saw
not his real foe.
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