Flames

ss, but the sun only shone fitfully, and the street looked sulky. The faces of the passers-by were hot and weary. Women trailed along under the weight of

he crossings the policemen, helpless in their uniforms of the winter, became dictatorial more readily than on cooler days. Some sorts of weather incline every one to temper or to depression

eyes were open and fixed furtively upon her mistress, as if in inquiry or alarm, and her whole soul was whirling in a turmoil set in motion by the first slap she had ever recei

y staring straight before her, without definite expression. Her face indeed wore a quite singularly blank look and her mouth was slightly open. Her feet, stuck out before her, rested on the edge of the fender, shoeless, and both her general appearance and attitude betokened a complete absence of self-consciousness, and that lack of expectation of any immediate event which is often dubbed stupidity. The lady of the feathers sitting in the horsehair-covered chair in the cheap sitting-room w

rgan, and with the suffocated note of Jessie, in a depressing symphony. The sun went in again, and some dust, stirred into motion by a passing omnibus, floated in through the half-open window and settled in a light film upon the photograph of Marr. Presently the organ moved away, and faded gradually in pert tunes down the street. Jessie's nervous system, no longer played upon, ceased to spend its pain in sound, and a London silence fell round the little room. Then, at length, Cuc

she murmured;

g her body in token of anxious humility. Cuckoo picked her up and stroked her mechanically, but still with her eyes on the photograph. Two tears swa

ale and rather we

o," he

in the chair,

d, and closed h

to the little room, and put his

d me to come

know as

back steadily up and down, alternately smoothing and ruffling

ou I shou

d y

you rem

nd the side of her head and neck, on which the loose hair was tumblin

ember nothing. I don

's hair and at the back of her thin hand movi

ot?" h

rd it, but presently it appeared that her silence had been caused by the effec

it's like a beastly dream, and when

Cuckoo turned round to him, and

mad last night. N

er almost pleadingly,

tly, as if demand

you mad," s

id Julia

r fr

had nothing t

all hi

rew shrill

worse than I hate that copper west side of Regen

ad lost a great possession. Julian looked embarrassed and pained, almost guilty, too. He put out his han

ed you to be; yes, I di

id you only come h

was

ll the others. And I did so want t

e world. The cell and the cloister were left behind, were things to be forgotten, with the grating of the confessional and the dim routine of service and of asceticism. He had been borne on by the wave of a brilliant, a violent hour, away from them. Let the angelus bell ring; he no longer heard it. Let the drone of prayers and praises rise in a monotonous music by day and by night; he no longer had the will to heed them. For there was another music in his ears. Soon it would be in his heart. Imagine a Trappist suddenly transported from the desert of his long silence to a gay plage on whic

ly seemed to suit her to-day. It looked draggled, and as if it had been up all night, he thought. The black back of it heaved as Cuckoo sobbed, like a little black wave. Was the eternal movement of the sea caused by some horrible, inward grief which, though secret, must come thus to t

f her chair. "You must not. Let us say I was mad last night. Perhaps I was

Then, with the odd penetration that so often gilds female

hat you say; you

arpness, and by the self-revelat

he began. But she stop

nk it's nothing. So it o

mind unimaginative to-day, because deadened by the excitement

think of you in

ll now.

or the moment, look back at all. Action had lifted scales from his eyes, had stirred the youth in him, had stung him as if with bright fire, and given him, at a breath, a thousand thoughts, visions, curiosities. A sense of power came to him. He did not ask whether the power made for evil or for good. Simply, he was inclined to glory in it, as a man glories in his recovered strength when he wakes from a long sleep following fatigue. Cuckoo, with feeble hands, seemed tugging to hold back this power, with feeble voice seemed crying against it as a deadly thing. And Julian, though he strove to console her, scarcely sympathized with her fully. He could not, if he would, be quite unhappy to-day. Only in Cuckoo's grief he began to read a curious legend. In her tears there w

in his gaze thrilled her. He put out his hand to touch hers, and a

ou in that way. I ne

emed apparent; for in her ignorance she had a strange knowledge of life, and especially

e murmured. "Why sho

e," he said, pretend

contradicted. "They all think dir

restlessly her anxiety paced up and down

er sounded more boyish, "last night I was drunk. La

ted, looking puzzl

y wrong, but if you have thought of me in a different way, I'm sorr

ess sprang up i

," she

es

pro

romi

od rose in h

a friend," she said,

an s

g air of gallantry. She shrank visibly

oken with a violence of contempt. "I want a man as likes

'll not

ith a gaiety of inquiry

looke

r," she said steadily. "

, Julian dropped his gently quizzing manne

to like each other thoroughly, never anything

st to look reli

truer than the other thing? There's something b

left her that day, he shook hands with her by the door; s

he said. "Better sort of thing than a

the sitting-room. She stepped on something, and

hat?" Jul

tograph of the creature she had feared and hated might spoil that good-bye of

ll, and woman is most f