"Valentine's."
"Then why d'you have him with you?" asked Cuckoo, suddenly and rather roughly pushing away Rip, who was swirling in her lap like a whirlpool.
"Oh, he's taken a stupid dislike to Valentine," Julian answered thoughtlessly. "He won't stay with him."
In a moment Cuckoo had caught the little dog back.
"That's funny," she said.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Julian.
Then, seeing her thoughtful gaze, and the odd way in which she suddenly caressed the dog, he was angry with himself for having told her anything about the matter.
"Rip's a little fool," he said. "Perhaps Jessie will take a dislike to you some day, Cuckoo."
"Not she, never!" said Cuckoo, with conviction. And, after that, she could never spoil Rip enough.
These visits and teas ought to have been pleasant functions, bright oases in the desert of Cuckoo's life, but a cloud fell over them at the beginning and deepened as the days went by. For Cuckoo, with her sharpness of the gamin and her quick instinct of the London streets, was perpetually watching for and noting the signs in Julian's face, manner, or language, that fed those two passions of jealousy and of protection within her. And, at first, she allowed Julian to see what she was doing.