Yet the change in Julian would
have seemed to most people far more remarkable.
He came into the drawing-room rather hastily, in evening dress with
a coat over it. Wade had forewarned him of the doctor's presence, and
he entered, speaking loud words of welcome, and holding out a greeting
hand. The too-ready voice and almost premature hand betokened his latent
uneasiness. Vice makes some people unconscious, some self-conscious.
Julian belonged at present to the latter tribe. Whether he was thoroughly
aware of self-alteration or not, he evidently stirred uneasily under an
expectation of the doctor's surprise. This drove his voice to loud notes
and his manner to a boisterous heartiness, belied by the shifting glance
of his brown eyes.
The doctor was astounded as he looked at him. Yet the change here was
far less inexplicable than that other change in Valentine. Its mystery
was the familiar mystery of humanity. Its horror was the horror that we
all accept as one of the elements of life. Deterioration, however rapid,
however complete, does not come upon us like a ghost in the night to
puzzle us absolutely. It is not altogether out of the range of our
experience. Most men have seen a man crumble gradually, through the
action of some vice, as a wall crumbles through the action of time, falls
into dust and decay, filters away into the weed-choked ditches of utter
ruin and degradation.
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