Valentine had won his intended triumph, although for a while it had been in jeopardy. Doctor Levillier was in perplexity; he had been brought to the very threshold of revelation, and then thrust back into an every-day world of thwarted hopes and broken ambitions. But the memory of magic was still with him, and gave him a feeling of unrest, and a pertinacity that was not to be without reward forever. Valentine's triumph held for the conqueror a poison seed from which a flower was to spring. The doctor's determination to continue the fight was frustrated at this time by Julian, rather than by Valentine. Julian's disappointment plunged him in a deep sea of indifference, from which he declined to be rescued. The doctor's invitations to him remained unanswered. If he called, Julian was never at home. Several times the doctor met Valentine, who, with a deprecating smile, told him that Julian was away on some mad errand. "I seldom see him now," he even added upon one occasion. "He has gone beyond me. Julian is living so fast that my poor agility cannot keep pace with him." It seemed as if the whole affair was going completely out of the doctor's knowledge, and that even Cuckoo had no longer any power of attraction for Julian. The doctor wrote to her and received an ill-spelt answer, telling him that Julian had not been near her since the last night of the year. In this event the doctor's only hope lay in keeping closely in touch with Valentine. To do this proved an easy matter. Valentine responded readily to his invitations, asked him out in return, seemed glad to be with him. The doctor believed he read the reason of this joy in Valentine's anxiety to prove the depth of Julian's degradation. He had now begun to play devilishly upon a pathetic stop, and sought every occasion to descant upon the social ruin that was overtaking Julian, and his deep concern in the matter. This hypocrisy was so transparent and so offensive that there were moments when it stank in the doctor's nostrils, and he could scarcely repress his horror and disgust. Yet to show them would be not only impolitic, but would only add fuel to the flames of Valentine's pyre of triumph. So the doctor, too, sought to play his part, and never wearied in seeking Julian, although his quest was in vain. From Valentine he gathered that Julian was now dropped even by the gay world; that his clubs looked askance at him; that men began to shun him, and to whisper against him. "The stone is going down in the sea," Valentine said. "Who threw it into the sea?" the doctor asked. "Tell me that." Valentine shrugged whimsical shoulders. "Fate, I suppose," he answered. "Fate is a mischievous boy, and is always throwing stones. Is the lady of the feathers disconsolate?"