"Cuckoo Bright," he said. "An odd name! And an odd person, I suppose,
Lawler?"
Lawler pursed his lips rather primly.
"Very odd, sir. Not at all a usual sort of patient, sir."
"H'm. Go and ask her if she comes as a patient or on private business."
The man retreated and returned.
"The—lady says she's ill and must see you, sir, if only for a moment."
This was Cuckoo's ruse to get into the house, and was based upon Julian's long-ago remark that the doctor could never resist helping any one who was in trouble. Standing on the doorstep, she had histrionically simulated faintness for the special benefit of Lawler, who regarded her with deep suspicion.
"I suppose I must see her," the doctor said with a sigh. "Show her in,
Lawler."
Lawler departed, disapprovingly, to do so, and after a moment the doctor followed him. He walked into his consulting-room, where he found the lady of the feathers standing by the writing table. The autumn day was growing dark, and the street was full of deepening mist. Cuckoo was but a fantastic shadow in the room. Her dress rustled with an uneasy sound as the doctor came in. His first act was to turn on the electric light. In a flash the rustling shadow was converted into substance. Cuckoo and the doctor stood face to face, and Cuckoo's tired eyes fastened with a hungry, almost a wolfish, scrutiny upon this stranger. She wanted so much of him. The look was so full of intense meaning that, coming in a flash with the electric flash, it startled the doctor. Yet he had seen something like it before in the eyes of those who suspected that they carried death within them, and came to ask him if it were true. He was surprised, too, by her appearance. The women of the streets did not come to him, although if they had been able to read the writing in his heart many of them would surely have come. He shook hands with Cuckoo, told her to sit down, and sat down himself opposite to her.
"What is the matter? Please tell me your symptoms," he said gently.