At last—­perhaps it was owing to the unusual heat of the night—­Cuckoo became so over-fatigued that she was scarcely conscious what she was doing.  Her smile was utterly devoid of meaning, and had she been suddenly asked, she could not have told whether she was at the Regent Street end of Piccadilly, at Hyde Park Corner, or midway between the two.  Once more there was a block.  The people were pressed, or surged of their own will, together, and Cuckoo found herself leaning against some stranger.  This sudden support gave to her an equally sudden knowledge of the extent to which she was fatigued, and when the block ceased and the stranger—­unconscious that he was being used as a species of pillow—­moved away, Cuckoo almost fell to the ground.  Stretching out her hands to save herself, she caught hold of a man’s arm, and as she did so her eyes moved to his face.  It was Julian, and, before her grasp had time to fix all his attention on her, Cuckoo saw why he was in Piccadilly.  In an instant all her lassitude was gone; all the fatigue, so passionless and complete, vanished.  An extraordinary warmth, that of fire, not of summer, swept into her heart.  She stood still and trembled, as if from the accession of the abrupt strength that flows from an energy purely nervous.

“Hulloh, Cuckoo!” Julian said.

She nodded at him.  He looked down at her, not quite knowing what to say, for he knew, by this time, that she objected to any hint from him on the subject of her proceedings of the night.  That was ignored between them, and when they met the situation was that of a lodger in the Marylebone Road holding friendly intercourse with a dweller in Mayfair, nothing more and nothing less.

“Taking a stroll?” Julian said at last.  “Isn’t it a lovely night?”

“Yes.  I say, I’m tired,” she answered.

“Shall I take you somewhere?” he asked.

“Yes, do,” she said.

They moved towards the Circus.

“Where shall we go?” Julian said.  “Have you any pet place?”

“I don’t know—­oh, the Monico,” she replied.

The restaurant was right in front of them.  They dodged across to the island, thence to the opposite pavement, and passed in silently.  The outer hall was thronged with people.  So was the long inner room, and for a moment they stood in the doorway looking for a table.  At length Julian caught sight of an empty one far down under the clock at the end.  They made their way to it and sat down.

“What will you have?” Julian asked Cuckoo.

She considered, sinking back on the plush settee.

“A glass of stout, I think, and—­”

“And a bun,” he interposed, smiling in recollection of their first interview.

But Cuckoo did not smile or seem to recognize the allusion.

“Please, I’ll have a sandwich,” she said.

Julian ordered it, the stout, a cup of coffee and a liqueur brandy for himself.  While the waiter was getting the things he noticed Cuckoo’s extreme and active gravity, a gravity which seemed oddly to give her quite a formidable appearance under her feathers.  Despite the obvious weariness written on her face, there was somehow a look of energy about her, the aspect of a person full of intention and purpose.