Part 80 (1/2)
”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.
”I believe it. She hates me not because I am myself, but simply because I am your closest friend. Hush, Julian. It's much better all this should be said once for all. Many women are intensely jealous of the men friends of men whom they either love, or who they mean shall love them. Look at the wives who drive their husbands' old chums from intimacy into the outer darkness of acquaintances.h.i.+p. Wedding-days break, as well as bind, faith.
And you have had your wedding-day with Cuckoo.”
”That was an accident. She loathes to think of it.”
”She may say so. But it puts a fine edge on her hatred of me, nevertheless.”
”No, Valentine, no. Her dislike of you is simply silly--instinctive.”
”She tells you so. Ah! I was wrong to call her nothing. But it is her hatred of me that must bring us to battle unless--”
”Unless what?”
”You give her up now, once and for all.”
”Give Cuckoo up!”
The words came slowly, and the voice that uttered them sounded startled and even shocked. Valentine began to gauge the new power of the lady of the feathers from that moment.
”That's a--a strong thing to do, Val.”
”It won't hurt you to do a strong thing for once in your life.”
”Even if it didn't hurt me I think it would hurt her very much. For, Valentine, I believe you said the truth when you said to me once, 'That girl loves you.' Do you remember?”
”Perfectly. Loves you, your birth, your position, your money, your good looks, perhaps your standpoint above the gutter. I can well believe that Miss Bright, like all her sisterhood, loves with undying love that combination of flesh-pots, her notion of the ego of a man.”
”She has never accepted a halfpenny from me.”
”Because she means eventually to have twenty-one s.h.i.+llings in the pound.
Have some more champagne.”
”Yes. You are wrong, Val, utterly wrong. Cuckoo's not mercenary. If such a girl could be good, she is good.”
There was just a touch of the maudlin in Julian's voice. He went on very earnestly, and nodding his head emphatically over even his conjunctions.
”And if she were what you say, she would have no influence over me, and I should hate her. But to me she is just what a good girl might be. Why, even the doctor--”