"After all," he exclaimed in a calmer voice, "we are taking an absurdity mighty seriously."
But Julian would not agree to this view of the matter.
"I don't know that we are," he said.
"You don't know!"
"That is an absurdity. No, Valentine, I don't; I can't think that it is.
I saw it in Cuckoo's eyes only once, and that was—just—"
"Tell me just when you saw it."
The words came from Valentine's lips with a pressure, a hurry almost of anxiety. He seemed curiously eager about the history of this chimera. But Julian, eager too, and engrossed in thoughts that moved as yet in a maze full of vapors and of mists, did not find time to notice it.
"I noticed it just after, or when, she was begging me to go home."
"Like a good boy," Valentine hastily interposed. "Because her jealousy prompted her to hate the thought of your having any pleasure in which she did not share. Oh, you noticed the flame then. Did it, too, tell you to go home?"
He spoke rather harshly and flippantly, and apparently put the question without desire of an answer, and rather with the intention of ridicule than for any other reason. But Julian took it seriously and replied to it.