It might be a fancy, but the doctor was not,
as a rule, the prey of fancies. Yet Valentine gave no outward hint of
inward turmoil. Rather did the doctor divine it as by a curious intuition
that guided him to that which lay in hiding. And it was this apprehension
of a deep violence and peculiar, excessive animation in Valentine that
woke the doctor's deepest wonder, and set the gulf between them so
widely. For all violence had once been so specially abhorred by
Valentine. He had so loved and sought all calm. The calm, he had often
said, were the true aristocrats of life. Fury and any wild movements of
the passions were of the gutter.
That dinner was returned. The doctor dined with Valentine and Julian
more than once, and accompanied them to the theatre. But he was unable to
make certain of Valentine's precise attitude towards Julian, although he
saw easily that the influence of the one over the other had rather waxed
than waned. This being so, it followed that Julian, having completely
changed, the influence that guided him must have completely changed also.
The pendulum had swung back. That often happened in the record of men's
lives. But not in such a way as this. The doctor, like Cuckoo, recognized
the existence of a mystery.
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