But Valentine did not accept the reply as satisfactory. On
the contrary, it evidently irritated him still more, for he said with
unusual warmth:
"Your reason for dropping your engagements, throwing me over and
wasting my evenings is quite obvious. The blessed damozel of the
feathers is attractive to you. Her freshness captivates you. Her
brilliant conversation entertains you. She is the powdered and
painted reason of these irrelevant escapades."
"Don't sneer at her, Val."
The words came quickly, like a bolt. Valentine frowned, and a deepening
suspicion flashed in his eyes.
"I did not think you were so easily flattered," he continued.
"Flattered?"
"Yes. Cuckoo Bright admires you, and you go to number 400 to smell the
rather rank fumes of the incense which she burns at your shrine."
"Nonsense!" Julian cried warmly.
"What other reason can you have? She has no beauty; she has no
conversation, no gaiety, no distinction, no manners--she has nothing.
She is nothing."
"Ah, it's there you're wrong."
"Wrong!"
"When you say she is nothing."
"I say it again," Valentine reiterated almost fiercely.
"The lady of the feathers is nothing, nothing at all. God and the
devil--they have completely forgotten her.
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