"I have a cab here waiting." Valentine spoke with an iron calm. "We had arranged to go to Magdalen's."
Julian uttered an oath.
"That devil!" he exclaimed. "I won't go to her. I am half dead. I am killing myself."
He pulled himself up short, then cried out savagely, and half despairingly:
"No, by God, you are killing me!"
He began to tremble, and looked towards Cuckoo as a man looks who seeks for refuge.
"You are treating me very strangely, Julian," Valentine said frigidly. "Last night you were drunk. You seemed to take me for some enemy, and struck me. Many men would resent your conduct. I am too much your friend."
"You—my friend!" Julian exclaimed bitterly.
"You!"
Abruptly he sprang up, tearing his hand out of Cuckoo's. He went over to Valentine and stared with a passion of perplexity and of loathing into his eyes.