It will be said that Dr. Levillier knew of her circumstances; but anxiously kind and thoughtful though he was, he did not yet realize the effect of his advice given to the lady of the feathers during the drive on the Hampstead Heights.  He had told her to prove her will by doing the thing that Julian had asked of her.  But he did not know what Julian had asked.  And he did not comprehend the bitter fruit that her following of his further advice to keep from low and loveless actions must bring to the ripening.  When he spoke, as the sun went down on London, he was carried on by excitement, and was thinking rather of the fate of Julian, the diablerie of Valentine, than of the individual life of the girl at his side.  He was arming her for the battle.  But he dreamed of weapons, not of rations, like many an enthusiast.  He forgot that the soldier must be fed as well as armed.  He said to Cuckoo:  “Fight!  Use your woman’s wit; use your heart; wake up, and throw yourself into this battle.”  And she, filled with determination, and with a puzzled, pent ardour to do something, did not know what to do except—­starve.  So she began to starve for Julian’s sake, and because the doctor had fired her heart.  He had said:  “Do what Julian asked you to do, and show Julian that you have done it.”  But something within Cuckoo forbade her to fulfil this last injunction.  She could give up the street, but an extraordinary shyness, false shame, and awkwardness had so far prevented her from letting Julian know it.  If he knew it, he would understand what it meant for her, and would force money on her, and Cuckoo, having once made up her mind that money and Julian should never be linked together in her relations with him, stuck to secrecy on this subject with her normal dull pertinacity.  So matters move slowly towards a deadlock.  The lady of the feathers did not neglect the pawnshop.  Her few trinkets went there very soon.  Then things that were not trinkets, that green evening dress, for instance, the imitation lace, and one day a sale took place.  Cuckoo disposed, for an absurd sum, of her title deed, the headgear that had given birth to her nickname.  She was no longer the lady of the feathers.  The hat that had seen so much of her life reposed upon the head of virtue, and knew Piccadilly no more.  But Julian’s present remained with her, and indeed came into every-day use.  And still Jessie sported her yellow riband.  Later there came a terrible time, when the eyes of Cuckoo—­appraising everything on which they looked—­fell with that fateful expression, not merely upon Jessie’s yellow riband, but upon Jessie herself.  But that time was not quite yet.