So they met with a fair show of cordiality, and Julian
developed a little of his old cheerfulness.
"Val's dressing," he said. "Well, there's plenty of time. By the way,
how's your Russian, doctor?"
"Better."
"You've cured him! Bravo!"
"I hope I have persuaded him to cure himself."
Julian looked up hastily.
"Oh, that sort of complaint, was it?"
He laughed, not without a tinge of bitterness.
"Perhaps he doesn't want to be cured."
"I have persuaded him to want to be, I think."
"Isn't that rather a priest's office?" Julian asked.
The doctor noticed that a very faint hostility had crept into his manner.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. Such an illness is a matter of temperament, I dare
say, and the clergy tinker at our temperaments, don't they? while you
doctors tinker at our bodies."
"A nerve-doctor has as much to do with mind as body, and no doctor can
possibly do much good if he entirely ignores the mind. But you know my
theories."
"Yes. They make you clergyman and doctor in one, a dangerous man."
And he laughed again, jarringly, and shifted in his seat, looking around
him with quick eyes.
"What do you think of the room?" he said abruptly.
"I think it entirely spoilt and ruined," the doctor answered gravely.
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