“I ain’t got nothing to do.  I want something; I’ll do anything, like she does,” this, with a nod in the direction of a door through which the pleasant stranger had vanished.

“Miss King; our bookkeeper!  You know her?”

“No.  I only see her in the street.”

“Good morning,” came from the lady, and a back confronted Cuckoo.

The pilgrimages were resumed.  Cuckoo visited dressmakers, bonnet-shops, ABC establishments, with no success.  Her face, even when unpainted, told its tale.  Nature can write down the truth of a sin better than art.  Cuckoo learnt that fact by her walks.  But still she trudged, learning each day more truths, one of which—­a finale to the long sermon, it seemed—­was that there is no army on earth more difficult to enlist in, under certain circumstances her own, than the army of good working-girls.  The day she thoroughly understood that finale Cuckoo went home and had a violent row with Mrs. Brigg.  A cold scrag of mutton was supposed to be the bone of contention, but that was only supposition.  Cuckoo was really cursing Mrs. Brigg because the world is full of close boroughs, not at all because cold mutton has not learnt how to achieve eternal life, while at the same time fulfilling its duties as an edible.  Not understanding this subtlety of emotion, Mrs. Brigg let herself loose in sarcasm.

“Why don’t yer go out of a night?” she screamed, battering with one hand on a tea-tray, held perpendicularly, to emphasize her words.  “What’s come to yer?  Go out; go out of a night.”

“Shan’t.”

“Turned pious, ‘ave yer?” sneered the landlady.  “Or waitin’ for a ’usband?  Which is it to be?  Mr. H’Addison, I dessey!  Hee, hee, hee.”

She burst into a bitter snigger.  Cuckoo flushed scarlet and uttered words of the pavement.  Any one hearing her then must have put her down as utterly unredeemed and irredeemable, a harridan to bandy foul language with a cabman, or to outvie a street-urchin bumped against by a rival in the newspaper trade.  She covered Mrs. Brigg with abuse, prompted by the gnawings at her heart, the hunger of mind and body, fear of the future, wonder at the impossibilities of life.  Her own greatness—­for her love and following obstinate unselfishness, without religious prompting or self-respect, as it was, might be called great—­turned sour within her heart at such a moment.  Her very virtue became as vinegar.  Mrs. Brigg was drowned in epithets and finally pushed furiously out into the passage.  Cuckoo turned from the door to Jessie yelping, and directed a kick at the little dog.  Jessie wailed, as only a toy dog can, like the “mixture” stop of an organ, wailed and ran as one that runs to meet an unknown future.  Then Cuckoo pursued, caught her, and burst into tears over her.  The little creature’s domed skull and india-rubber ears were wet with the tears of her mistress.  And she whimpered, too, but with much relief, for she was back in her world of Cuckoo’s lap; and could not be quite unhappy there.  But in what a world was Cuckoo!