He was greatly affected, and did not scruple
to show his discomfort to Wade, who waited respectfully by the door.
"What an alteration!" he said again, but in a lower and more withdrawn
voice. "I cannot recognize the room I once knew--and loved!"
"Mr. Valentine has been doing it up, sir."
"But why, Wade; why?"
"I don't know, sir; a fancy, I suppose, sir."
"An evil one," the doctor murmured to himself.
He glanced at Wade. It struck him that the man's mind might possibly
march with Cuckoo's in detection of his master's transformation, if
transformation there were. Wade returned the doctor's glance with calm,
good breeding.
"Mr. Valentine is well, I hope, Wade?" he said.
"Very well, sir, I believe."
"And Mr. Addison?"
"I couldn't quite say, sir, as to that."
"Do you mean that he looks ill?"
"I couldn't say, sir. Mr. Julian don't look quite what he was, to my
view, sir."
"Oh."
The butler's level voice mingled with the clouded red of the room, and
again a prophetic chord of change was struck.
"Thank you, Wade" said the doctor.
The man retired, and the doctor was left alone in the empty room.
* * * * *
Although he was intensely sensitive, Doctor Levillier was not a man whose
nerves played him tricks.
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