Cuckoo broke into a laugh. She picked up her glass, and drank all that was in it. Putting it down empty, she laughed again, with her eyes on Julian. That sound of mirth chilled him utterly. "Why d'you laugh?" he said. "I don't know--thinkin' that you're to be like all the rest, I suppose," she answered. "Like all them brutes out there, and him too." "Him," said Julian. "Whom are you speaking of?" She had not meant to say those last words, and tried to get out of an answer by asking for something more to drink. "Chartreuse," she said, with the oddest imaginable accent. Julian ordered it hastily, and then immediately repeated his question. "Never mind," Cuckoo replied. "It don't matter." But he was not to be denied. "D'you mean Valentine?" he asked. She nodded her head slowly. Although Julian had half suspected that Valentine might be there this confirmation of his suspicion gave him a decided shock. "Oh, he was just walking home from some party," he exclaimed. "P'raps." "I'm certain of it." "He don't matter," she said with a hard accent. She drank the chartreuse very slowly, and seemed to be reflecting, and a change came over her face. It softened as much as a painted face can soften under dyed hair. "Dearie," she said, "it makes me sick to see you like the rest." "I never pretended to be anything different." "But you was different," she asserted. "I know you was different." How could she have divined the change in Julian that one night of the Empire had wrought? "I say," she went on, and her voice was trembling with eagerness, "you've got to tell me somethin'." "Well?" "That night I--I--it wasn't me made you different, was it?" And as she spoke Julian knew that it was she. Perhaps a fleeting expression in his face--telling naked truth as expressions may, though words belie them--made her understand, for her cheeks turned grey beneath the paint on them. "I wish I'd killed myself long ago," she said in a whisper. "Hush!" he exclaimed, cursing his tell-tale features. "I'm not different; and if I was you could have nothing to do with it." She said no more, but he saw by her brooding expression that she clung to her intuition, and knew what he denied. The hands of the clock fixed on the wall above their heads pointed to the half-hour after midnight. The pale and weary waiters were racing to and fro clearing the tables, dodging this way and that with trays, stealing along with arms full of long-stemmed, thick tumblers, eager for rest. The electric moons gave a sudden portentous wink. "Time!" a voice cried. People began to get up and move out, exchanging loud good-nights. The long room slowly assumed an aspect of desertion and greedy desolation. "We must go," Julian said.