She was admitted.  The doctor, in a hurry of business, had omitted to give Lawler any instructions in the event of Cuckoo’s prompt response to his telegram.  So she was shown into the waiting-room, in which three or four people were turning over illustrated papers with an air of watchful idleness and attentive leisure.  Cuckoo sat down in a corner as quietly as possible, and Lawler vanished.  The leaves of the illustrated papers rustled in the air with a dry sound.  To Cuckoo they seemed to be crackling personal remarks about her, and to be impregnated with condemnation.  She cast a furtive glance upon the square room and perceived that they were returned by four ladies, and that three of these ladies were looking straight at her.  The eight eyes met in a glance of inquiry and were instantly cast down.  Again the leaves of the illustrateds rustled, this time, Cuckoo felt convinced, more fiercely than before.  The frou-frou of the skirts of one of the ladies joined in the chorus, which was far from crying “Hallelujah!” Cuckoo began to feel a growing certainty that, despite the black veil and the neat umbrella, feminine instinct had divined her.  She was totally unaccustomed to such an atmosphere as that which prevailed in this room, and began to be the victim of an odd, prickly sensation, which she believed to be physical, but which was certainly more than half moral.  A wave of heat ran over her body.  It was like the heat which follows on a received slap.  One of the illustrateds deleted its voice from the general chorus.  Cuckoo was aware of this, and looked up again to find two eyes fixed upon her with an expression of thin distaste that was incapable of misinterpretation.  A second illustrated ceased to sing, two heads were inclined towards one another, and the “t’p, t’p, t’p” of a low whisper set the remaining two ladies at their posts as sentinels on the lady of the feathers.

Cuckoo put her hand to her face to pull her veil a little lower down.  By accident she tugged too hard, or it had been badly fastened to her hat, for one side got loose instantly and it fell down, revealing her face frankly.

The “t’p, t’p, t’p” sounded again, multiplied by two.  Cuckoo, thrown into confusion by the malign behaviour of her veil, caught awkwardly at the dropped end with an intention of readjusting it, but something in the sound of the whispering suddenly moved her to a different action.  She snatched the veil quite off, set her feet firmly against the thick Turkey carpet, raised her eyes and stared with all her might at the four ladies, hurling, as a man hurls a bomb, an expression of savage defiance into her gaze.  The whispers stopped; a thin and repeated cough, dry as Sahara, attacked the silence, and eight eyes were vehemently cast down.  Cuckoo continued staring, folding her hands in her lap.  The prickly sensation increased, but she considered it now as a thing to be jumped on.  Recognizing that she was recognized, she was instantly moved to