"Oh, I was out late last night," she answered, putting the teapot hastily down. And they talked on, pretending there were only two of them and no shadowy third.
Julian, having returned at last to the Marylebone Road, fell into his old habit of coming there often. And each time that he came the lady of the feathers counted a fresh step on his hideous journey towards the haunted bourne. Yet she never spoke of the dreary addition sum she was doing. She never reproached Julian, or wept, or let him see that her heart was growing cold as a pilgrim who kneels, bare, in long prayers upon the steps of a shrine. For she had learnt wisdom, and hugged it in her arms. Valentine was scarcely ever mentioned between them; but once, and evidently by accident, Julian allowed an expression to escape him which implied that Valentine now objected to the intimacy with Cuckoo. Immediately the words were uttered, Julian looked confused, and obviously would have wished to recall them, had it been possible.
"Oh, I know as he don't like me," Cuckoo said.
Julian answered nothing.
"Why d'you come, then?" she continued, with a certain desperation. "There ain't nothin' here to bring you. I know that well enough."
She cast a comprehensive glance round over the badly furnished room.
"Nothin' at all," she added with a sigh.
While she spoke Julian began to wonder, too, why he came, why he liked to come there. As Cuckoo said, there was nothing at all to bring him so often. He liked her, he was sorry for her, he had even a deep-running sympathy for her, but he did not love her. Yet he was fascinated to come to her, and there were sometimes moments when he seemed taken possession of, led by the hand, to that squalid room and that squalid presence in it. Why was that? What led him? He could not tell.
"I like coming here," he said; "and of course it's nothing to Valentine where I go."
Cuckoo glanced up hastily at the words. A little serpent enmity surely hissed in them. Julian spoke as if he were a man with some rebel feeling at his heart. But the serpent glided and was gone as he added: