Again, and this time with less abstraction, and with a sort of contemptuous humour, he turned to the lady of the feathers, and continued, as if once more aware of her presence: 

“Are you imbibing my gospel, the gospel of will and of influence?  I see you are by your pretty attitude and by the engaging face you are making at me.  Well, don’t get it wrong.  A gospel gone wrong in a mind is dangerous, and worse than no gospel at all.  If you get this gospel wrong you may become conceited, and fancy yourself possessed of a power which you haven’t a notion of.  To use will in any really affective way, you must train your body, and take care of it, not ruin it, and let it run to seed, or grow disfigured, or a ghastly tell-tale, a truth-teller, a town-crier with a big bell going about and calling aloud all the silly or criminal things you do.  Now you have forgotten this, or perhaps you never knew it, and so will could not work in you; not even, I believe, a malign will to do mischief.  You have thrown your body to the wolves, and whoever looks upon you must see the marks of their teeth.”

It was evident that he gloated on this idea that the body of the lady of the feathers was forever useless for good, and even powerless to do much effective evil.  He seemed to revel in the notion that she was simply a thing powerless, negative, and totally vain.

“I was mad ever to imagine the contrary,” he said.  Then, glancing away from personality, he exclaimed with more energy: 

“But sometimes a will is so great, so trained, so watchful of opportunities, so acute and ready, that, instead of passing away practically on the passing away of the body in which it has been born and has lived, and merely living and working through the emanations of itself that have clung to men and women in many different places, instead—­in fact—­of being diffused—­you understand me?” he broke out, with an obvious delight in the grossness of her ignorance and the denseness of her bewilderment and misunderstanding of him—­“which is a sort of death, it seizes, whole, as a body, with all the members sound, upon another home.  It commits, in effect, a great act of brigandage.  It lives on complete, powerful—­even more powerful than ever before, because to all its original powers it adds a glory of deception, and is a living lie.  If only you could understand me!”

Suddenly he burst into a peal of laughter that was a full stop to his philosophy.  His cigarette had gone out.  He threw it into the grate and stretched out his arms, still laughing.  And Cuckoo gazing at him, as if fascinated, said silently to herself, “If only I could!”

For she felt as if Valentine were telling her a great secret, secure in the hideous knowledge that, though she heard it, it must remain a secret from her on account of her ignorance and of her stupidity.  There was something in that feeling peculiarly maddening, yet Cuckoo displayed no irritation.  The sharp little demon at her elbow whispered to her to be silent, told her that she might learn, might yet understand, if she would play a part, and be no more the wildcat, the foolishly impulsive lady of the feathers.  Valentine struck his hand upon the table, and repeated: