“My dear fellow,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean—­I had no idea—­”

“You did mean that.  You do.  And I—­I have been fool enough to believe that you relied upon me, on my judgment; that you looked up to me; that—­good God, how absurd!”

He lay back in his chair and burst into a paroxysm of loud and mirthless laughter, while Julian, holding his champagne-glass between his fingers, and twisting it stealthily round and round, regarded him with a blank stare of utter confusion and perplexity.  Valentine continued to laugh so long that it seemed as if he were seized in the grip of a horrible hysteria.  But just as the situation was becoming actually intolerable, he suddenly controlled himself with an obvious and painful effort.  After remaining perfectly silent for two or three minutes, he said, in a voice that struggled to be calm and succeeded in being icy: 

“Julian, you have torn the veil of the Holy of Holies from the top to the bottom with a vengeance.  But why have you kept up the deception so long, when, after all, there was nothing behind the veil?  That was surely unnecessary.”

“What is the matter with you, Val?  I don’t understand you.”

“Nor I you.  And yet we say that we are intimate friends.  There’s an irony.”

At this point the waiter came in with an omelette, and the conversation ceased, checked by his peripatetic presence.  As soon as he had retreated, with all the hushed activity of a mute rolling on casters, Julian exclaimed: 

“It’s not an irony.  You choose to make it so.  You’re not yourself to-night, Valentine.  I do not compare you with poor Cuckoo.  How could I?  She’s down in the dirt and you are far away from the dirt.  And of course your power over any one must be a thousand times greater than hers.”

“If it came to a battle?  If it came to a battle?” interrupted Valentine.  “You say that, Julian?”

“A battle! of what?”

“Of wills, naturally, Cuckoo Bright’s will against mine?”

“But what a strange idea—­”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Because I don’t see the force of it.”

“Answer it nevertheless.”

“Then Cuckoo would be beaten at once,” Julian said.  But there was no ring of conviction in his voice, and he fell at once into silence after he had spoken the words.  Valentine saw by his frowning face and puckered forehead that the idea of such a battle had set in motion a train of thought in his mind.

“You are wondering, Julian,” Valentine said.

Julian looked up.

“Who doesn’t wonder in this beastly world?” he said morosely.

“I never do.  I prefer to act.  Drink some more champagne?”

He pushed the bottle over and went on: 

“You are wondering why I spoke of a battle between Cuckoo Bright and me.  Well, I’ll tell you.  I spoke because I see that there is to be such a battle.”