I
can't understand it."
"Nor I. Have you seen Marr to-day?"
"No. I haven't been to the club. I am so glad you don't know him."
Valentine laughed. He was lying back in a big chair, smoking a cigarette.
His face was unclouded and serene, and he had never looked more entirely
healthy. Indeed, he appeared much more decisively robust than usual.
Julian noticed this.
"Your trance seems positively to have done you good," he said.
"It certainly has not done me harm. My short death of the senses has
rested me wonderfully. I wonder if I am what is called a medium."
"I shouldn't be surprised if you are," Julian said. "But I don't think I
could be surprised at anything to-day. Indeed, I have found myself
dwelling with childish pleasure upon the most preposterous ideas, hugging
them to my soul, determining to believe in them."
"Such as--what?"
"Well, such as this."
And then Julian told Valentine of his curious notion that some wandering
soul was beginning to companion him, and described how he had thought he
saw it when he was gazing at the old woman in Grosvenor Place, and again
when he was with the lady of the feathers.
"But," Valentine said, "you say you were staring very hard at the old
woman?"
"Yes.
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