"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." Julian drank his champagne and looked definitely and increasingly astonished, as Valentine continued: "There is to be such a battle. I have seen it for a long time. Julian, you may think you know women. You don't. I said just now that a woman like Cuckoo Bright is nothing, but I said it for the sake of uttering a paradox. No woman is ever nothing in a world that is full of the things called men. No woman's ever nothing so long as there is a bottle of hair-dye, a rouge-pot, a dressmaker, and--a man within reach. She may be in the very gutter. That doesn't matter. For from the very gutter she can see--not the stars, but the twinkling vanities of men, and they will light her on her way to Mayfair drawing-rooms, even, perhaps, to Court. Who knows? And God--or the devil--has given to every woman the knowledge of her possibilities. Men have only the ignorance of theirs." "What has this to do with Cuckoo and me?" Julian said. "This bottle is empty, Valentine." Valentine rang hastily for another. "And what on earth has it got to do with a battle between you and Cuckoo?" "Everything. She hates me. She has told you so again and again." Julian looked expressively uncomfortable. "I've always stood up for you," he began.