"You're the last person," he began, and then caught himself up short. It must be confessed that she was very aggravating, and that the position she took up was wholly untenable. Having checked himself, he said more calmly:
"What's the good of talking about it? I live as other men do, naturally."
"Are you a beast too, then?" she asked.
She still kept her voice low, and the sentence came with all the more effect on this account.
"I don't see that," Julian exclaimed, evidently stung. "Women are always ready to say that about men."
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.