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. "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: