“In what way is she something extraordinary?”

“H’m?” Julian muttered.

“Surely you can define it.”

“What, Val?”

“The peculiarity of Cuckoo Bright that you laid so much stress on just now.”

“Oh, yes, now I remember.  No, I can’t define it.  How good this soup is.  The soup here—­”

“Yes, yes; our coming here again and again to eat it proves our appreciation.  Julian, do endeavour to answer my question.  I am really interested to know exactly what it is that has taken you again to Marylebone Road.”

Julian drank some more champagne.  His eyes began to sparkle.

“Can you give a reason for everything you do?” he asked.

“I think I certainly could for every act that I reiterate.”

“Then you’re built differently from me.  But I’ve told you all I can.  I like Cuckoo.  She’s a damned nice girl.”

Valentine’s lip curled.

“I can’t agree with you, Julian.”

“You don’t know her as I do.”

“Not quite.”

Julian reddened.

“Come, now,” he began, and then checked himself and laughed good-naturedly.  “You can’t play the saint any more, you know, Val,” he said.

“I have no wish to.  I discovered long ago that a saint is only the corpse of a man, not a living man at all.  But we are talking about this corpse of a woman.”

“Cuckoo’s no corpse.  By Jove, no.  I believe she’s got a power that no other woman has.”

“How so?  You haven’t been imagining that absurd flame in her eyes again?”

Valentine spoke with furtive uneasiness.  He was scarcely eating or drinking, but Julian was doing ample justice to the wine, and displayed a very tolerable appetite.  He lifted his glass to his lips and put it down before he answered: 

“No.  It’s gone.”

Valentine seemed relieved.

“Of course.  I knew it was an hallucination.  You went to satisfy yourself, I suppose.  And now—­”

“Since it’s gone Cuckoo seems to me—­I don’t know—­changed somehow.  Val, there must be a few people in the world with great power over others.  You are one.  Marr was another, and—­” He paused.

“And what?” Valentine said rather loudly.

“Well,” Julian paused again, as if conscious that he was about to say something that would seem ridiculous, “Cuckoo—­”

“Is a third!  You think it reasonable to bracket me with a woman like that, to compare my will, mine, who have lived the life of thought as well as the life of action, who have trained my powers to the highest point, and offered up sacrifices—­yes, sacrifices—­to my will, to that degraded, powerless creature!  Julian!”

He stopped, clenching his hand as it lay upon the table.  Never before had Julian seen him so profoundly moved.  All his normal calm and self-possession seemed deserting him.  His lips worked like those of a man in the very extremity of rage, and the red glow in his cheeks faded into the grey of suppressed passion.  Julian was utterly taken aback by such an exhibition of feeling.