Meanwhile the situation of Cuckoo above stairs was becoming at once sordid and tragic.  Starvation is always sordid.  It exposes cheek-bones, puts sharp points on elbows, writes ugliness over a face, and sets a wolf crouching in the heart.  Tragic it must always be, for a peculiar sorrow walks with it; but when it is obstinate, and springs from the mule in a human being, the tragedy has a lustre, a colour of its own.  The lady of the feathers was forever obstinate.  She had been obstinate in vice, she was now obstinate in virtue.  In the old days Julian had said to her, “Take some of my money and let the streets alone—­even for one night.”  She had refused.  Now Doctor Levillier had said to her, “Prove your will.  Lean on it.  Do something for Julian.”  She could only do this one thing.  She could only leave the street!  With frowning, staring obstinacy she left it.  There was always something pathetically blind about Cuckoo’s proceedings.  She was not lucid.  But once she had grasped an idea she was like the limpet on the rock.  So now she sat at home.  Out of her earnings she had managed to save a very little money.  One or two men had made her small presents from time to time.  For a little while she could exist.  As she sat alone on those strange new evenings she did much mental arithmetic, calculating how long, with these reduced expenses, which brought Mrs. Brigg’s so low, she could live without earning.  Sad sums were these, whether rightly or wrongly worked out.  The time must be short.  And afterwards?  This question drove Cuckoo out in the mornings, vaguely seeking an occupation.  She knew that London was full of “good” girls, who went forth to work while she lay in bed in the morning, and came home to tea, and one boiled egg and watercress, when she started out in the evening.  So she put on her hat and jacket and went forth to find out what work they did, and whether she could join in it.  Those were variegated pilgrimages full of astonishment.  Cuckoo would stroll along the road till she saw, perhaps, a girl who looked good—­that is, as unlike herself as possible—­descend into the frost, or the mud from a bus.  Then she would dog the footsteps of this girl, find out where she went, with a view of deducing from it what she did.  In this manner she once came to a sewing-machine shop in Praed Street, on the trail of a bright-looking stranger, who walked gaily as to pleasant toil.  Cuckoo remained outside while the stranger went in and disappeared.  She examined the window—­rows of sewing-machines, beyond them the dressed head of a woman in a black silk gown.  What did the stranger do here to gain a living, and that bright smile of hers?  Suddenly Cuckoo walked into the shop and up to the lady with the dressed head.

“A machine, ma’am?” said the lady, with a very female look at Cuckoo.

Cuckoo shook her head.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’d like some work.”

“Work!” said the lady, her voice travelling from the contralto to the soprano register.