"Why do you go to his door? What do you want with him?"
Cuckoo's quick woman's instinct detected a suspicion of something that was like anxiety in his voice as he said the words. In an instant the warm impulse that, in her silent meditation, had led her to buckle on her armour and to think, with a certain courage, that she was to fight one day, stirred and glowed and leaped up, an impulse greater than herself. The fear that had fallen upon her was lessened, for she felt that this man, too, might, nay did, know fear.
"What's that to you?"
She turned upon him boldly with the question, and he knew her for the first time as an antagonist, who might actively attack as well as passively hate. He leaned forward, and looked into her eyes searchingly, with a sort of rapture, of anxiety, too. It recalled something to Cuckoo. She tried to remember what, but for a moment could not. Then, as if reassured, he resigned his eager and nervous posture of inquiry. That second movement brought the light that Cuckoo's puzzled mind sought. It was Julian who had looked first into her eyes with that strange watchfulness. These men echoed one another in that glance which she could not understand. What they sought in her eyes she could not tell. If it were the same thing it could not be love. And it seemed to be a thing that they feared to find.
"Doctor Levillier is a great friend of mine," Valentine said. "He is a famous nerve-doctor. Seeing you hovering about his door led me to suppose you might be ill, and were going to consult him. I hope you are not ill."
"Not I!"
"Because he is away from home at present."
"Oh!"
"Do you want to see him?"
"I suppose I can see him, like any one else, if I've a mind to."