But again he noticed the worn terror of her face. Surely that night she, too, had passed through some unwonted experience, which had written its sign-manual amid the paint and powder of her shame.
The lady stared back at him. Beneath her tinted eyelids the fear seemed to grow like a weed. Tears followed, rolling over her cheeks and mingling with the coffee in her cup.
"Oh dear," she murmured lamentably. "Oh, dear, oh!"
"What's the matter?" said Julian.
But she only shook her head, with the peevish persistence of weak obstinacy, and continued vaguely to weep as one worn down by chill circumstance.
Julian turned his eyes from her to the coffee-stall, in which the sharp-featured youth now negligently leant, well satisfied with the custom he had secured. Behind the youth's head it seemed to Julian that the phantom flame hung trembling, as if blown by the light wind of the morning. He laid his hand on the lady's left arm and unconsciously closed his fingers firmly over the flesh, while, in a low voice, he said to her:
"Look there!"
The lady of the feathers stopped crying abruptly, as if her tears were suddenly frozen at their source.
"Where, dearie?" she said jerkily. "Whatever do you mean?"
"There where the cups are hung up. Don't you see anything?"