He was much perplexed and saddened, but keenly
interested too, and, getting up from the chair in which he had been
sitting, he moved about the grotesque and vulgar room, threading his
way through the graceless furniture with a silent and gentle caution.
And as he walked meditatively he remembered a conversation he had held
with Valentine long ago, when the latter had spoken complainingly of
the tyranny of an instinctive purity. The very words he had used came
back to him now:
"The minds of men are often very carefully, very deftly poised, and a
little push can send them one way or the other. Remember if you lose
heaven, the space once filled by heaven will not be left empty."
Had not the little push been given? Had not heaven been lost? That was
the problem. But Doctor Levillier, if he saw a little way into effect,
was quite at a loss as to cause. And already he had a suspicion that the
change in Valentine was not quite on the lines of one of those strange
and dreadful human changes familiar to any observant man. This suspicion,
already latent, and roused, perhaps, in the first instance long ago by
the mystery of Rip's avoidance of his master, and by the shattering of
Valentine's musical powers, was confirmed in the strongest way when
Julian appeared a few minutes later.
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