"Why not?"
"You ought to know."
She said it fiercely. All her self-consciousness was suddenly gone, swept away by the flood of thought and of remembrance that was surging through her mind.
"Why can't you see what he is," she exclaimed, "any more than he can, than Julian—Mr. Addison, I mean? Any one'd think you was all mad, they would."
Doctor Levillier was glad he had admitted the lady of the feathers to his presence. Interest sprang up in him, alive and searching.
"Tell me what you mean," he said. "Are you talking about Mr. Cresswell?"
"Yes, I am; and I say of all the beasts in London he's the greatest."
Cuckoo did not choose her words carefully. She was highly excited and she wanted to be impressive. It seemed to her that to use strong language was the only way to be impressive. So she used it. The doctor's face grew graver.
"Surely you hardly know what you're saying," he said very quietly.
But his thoughts flew to that summer night when his mastiffs howled against Valentine, and he felt as if a mystery were deepening round him as the autumn mist of evening deepened in the street outside.