"Cuckoo Bright?" he echoed. "Does everybody know her, then? How came she
into your strict life, doctor?"
Doctor Levillier noticed that Valentine, like Julian, carefully set him
aside as a being in some different sphere, much as a great many people
insist on setting clergymen. This fact alone showed that he was talking
with two strangers, and seemed to give the lie to long years of the most
friendly and almost brotherly intercourse.
"Is my life so strict, then?" he asked gently.
"I think little Cuckoo would call it so, eh, Julian?"
He glanced at Julian and laughed softly, still drawing on his gloves. In
evening dress he looked curiously young and handsome, and facially less
altered than the doctor had at first supposed him to be. Still there was
a difference even in the face; but it was so slight that only a keen
observer would have noticed it. The almost frigid and glacial purity had
floated away from it like a lovely cloud. Now it was unveiled, and there
was something hard and staring about it. The features were still
beautiful, but their ivory lustre was gone. A line was penciled, too,
here and there. Yet the doctor could understand that even Valentine's own
man might not appreciate the difference.
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