The butcher-boys are partisans.  Every gamin in the gutter is all for one boat or for the other, and dances excitedly to know the result.  London, in fact, loses several wrinkles on boat-race day, and smiles itself into a very pleasant appearance of briskness and of youth.  As a rule, Julian went to see the race and to lunch with his friends at Putney or elsewhere, without either abnormal experience of excitement or any unusual vivacity.  He was naturally full of life, and had hot blood in his veins, loved a spectacle, and especially a struggle of youth against youth.  But no boat-race day had ever stirred him as this one did—­found him so attentive to outside influence, so receptive of common things.  For Julian had recently been half-conscious that he was progressing, and with increasing rapidity, though he knew not in what exact direction.  Simply, he had the feeling of motion, of journeying, and it seemed to him that he had been standing comparatively still for years.  And this boat-race day came to him like a flashing milestone upon the road of life.  He felt as if it held in its hours a climax of episodes or of emotions, as if upon it either his body or his mind must prepare to undergo some large experience, to meet the searching eyes of a face new and unfamiliar.

Possibly the reason of his own excitement lay in the excitement of another, in the curious preparations, which he had oddly shared, for the transformation of the unmistakable into the vague.  For the transformation of Cuckoo Bright had been preparing apace, and Julian was looking forward like a schoolboy to the effect which her novel respectability of appearance would have upon Valentine.  The rouge-box lay lonely and untouched in a drawer.  Even the powder-puff suffered an unaccustomed neglect.  The black gown had been tried on and taught to fit the thin young figure, and a hat—­with only one feather—­kept company with the discarded sarcophagus which had given to Cuckoo her original nickname.  And Cuckoo herself was almost as excited as Francine when she received her muff.  She had not seen Valentine since the day of the tea-party, yet her attitude of mind had undergone a change towards him, bent to it probably by her vanity.  Ever since Julian had given her the invitation to the Empire she had displayed a furtive desire to meet him again, and was perpetually talking of him and asking questions about him.  Nevertheless her fear of him had not died away.  Even now she sometimes exclaimed against him almost with vehemence, and made Julian renew his promise not to leave her during the evening.  But Julian could see that she longed, as well as dreaded, to meet him again.  After all, had he not picked her out from all the girlhood of London as one to whom he wished, to do honour?  Had he been the Minotaur, such a fact must have made her look upon him with desirous interest.