If Julian broke with Cuckoo, repulsed her forever into the long street
that was her pent and degraded world, would not the sharp salt of
Valentine's triumph be taken from him? Would not the wheels of his
Juggernaut car fail to do their office in his sight--there was the
point!--upon a precious victim? The lady of the feathers thus
deliberately abandoned by Julian would suffer perhaps almost to the
limit of her capability of pain, but Valentine would have lost sight
of her in the dark, and though he would have conquered that spectral
opposition which she had whimsically offered to him--he laughed to
himself now, thinking of his fear of it--he would not see that greatest
vision, the flight of his enemy. These thoughts flashed through his mind,
moving him to an answer that astonished Julian.
"Good-bye!" he said. "Why should I wish that?"
"You said the other day at the Savoy that she hated you; that you and she
must have a battle unless I chose between you."
"I was laughing."
The lifelessness left Julian's voice as he exclaimed:
"Valentine! But you were--"
"Sober, and you were not. Can you deny it?"
Julian was silent.
"I so little meant that nonsense," Valentine continued, "that I have
conceived a plan.
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