"Please, I'll have a sandwich," she said.
Julian ordered it, the stout, a cup of coffee and a liqueur brandy for himself. While the waiter was getting the things he noticed Cuckoo's extreme and active gravity, a gravity which seemed oddly to give her quite a formidable appearance under her feathers. Despite the obvious weariness written on her face, there was somehow a look of energy about her, the aspect of a person full of intention and purpose.
"Why, Cuckoo," he said, "you look like a young judge about to deliver a sentence on somebody."
And indeed that was just how her expression and pose behind the marble-topped table affected him. Just then the waiter brought the stout and the other things. Cuckoo removed her cheap kid gloves, took the tumbler in her thin fingers and sipped at it. After a sip or two she put the glass down, and said to Julian:
"I say."
"Well?"
"What are you about to-night?"
The question came from her painted lips very sternly. It seemed addressed by one who had a right to condemn, and who was going to exercise that right. Julian was astonished by her tone, and had an instant's inclination to resent it. But then he thought that there was nothing in the words themselves, and that the odd manner probably sprang simply from fatigue or some other womanish, undivined cause. So he answered:
"Just taking a stroll. It's so fine," and began to drink his coffee.
But Cuckoo quickly showed that her manner meant all that it had seemed to say.