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Later there came a terrible time, when the eyes of Cuckoo appraising everything on which they looked fell with that fateful expression, not merely upon Jessie's yellow riband, but upon Jessie herself. But that time was not quite yet. While Cuckoo endured this fate, Dr. Levillier was in a perplexity of another kind.
Some days later Cuckoo received a telegram from Harley Street. It came in the morning, and ran as follows: "Call here to-day if possible. Important. Levillier." Cuckoo read it, trembling. In her early days telegrams came often to her door "Meet me at Verrey's, four-thirty"; "Piccadilly Circus, five o'clock to-day." Such messages flickered through her youth, forming gradually a legend of her life.
The vehemence of his mental debate slew his power of observation of normal things. He forgot what he was waiting for. He forgot to expect Dr. Levillier. Two visions alternated in glaring contrast before the eyes of his brain life with Valentine, and life without him. It is so we watch the trance, or death, we know not which, of those whom we love, with a greedy, beautiful selfishness.
When the doctor took hold of his hand to feel his pulse the hand was hard and tense like iron, the fingers gripped for a moment like thin bands of steel, and the life in the blue eyes bounded, raced, swirled as water swirls in a mill-stream. Indeed, Dr. Levillier felt as if there was too much life in them, as if the cup had been filled with wine until the wine ran over.
He believed implicitly that the trance at that very moment had deepened into death, and that the sleepless instinct of the dog had divined it partially while he slept, and now knew it and was afraid. And the same error of belief shook Dr. Levillier. A spasm crossed his thin, earnest face. No death had ever hurt him so sharply as this death hurt him.
Upon this day one of these hated moments of mental and physical exhaustion had come upon him, and he struggled hard against his enemy. The procession of patients had been long, and more than once in the tiny interval between the exit of one and the entry of another, Dr. Levillier had peeped at his watch.
When a naturally calm, clear, and courageous mind finds itself besieged by what seem hysterical fancies, it is troubled and perplexed, and is inclined to take drastic measures to restore itself to its normal condition. Dr. Levillier found himself the prey of such fancies after his interview with Mrs. Wilson. He had prescribed for her.
He knew the future that stretches out like a spear beyond one word. So he sat quietly with his eyes on the ground. His lips were set firmly together. Valentine turned to observe him. "Doctor, you're not angry?" he asked. The doctor made no reply. "You know I warned you," Valentine went on. "You brought this thing on yourself." "Yes," said Levillier. But Julian interposed.
The dreary light of snow illumined the faces of all who walked in the streets, painting the brightest cheeks with a murky grey pigment, and making the sweetest eyes hollow and expressive of depression. Heavily the afternoon went by and the evening came sharply, like a blow. Dr. Levillier was engaged to dine with Julian and Valentine at the former's rooms in Mayfair.
The deference which he had always given to the doctor was gone. If it had been genuine it was dead. If it had only been a mask it had apparently served its purpose and was now contemptuously thrown aside. Doctor Levillier was deeply moved by the transformation. His friend had become a stranger during the interval of his absence. The man he admired was less admirable than of old.
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