"Dogs don't usually change. Their faithfulness bears everything without
breaking."
"Except a trance, then," Julian said, still with a wavering in-and-out
stolidity, at the same time mournful and almost ludicrous.
"That trance did for Rip; did for him, I tell you. He never knew poor old
Val again. As if he thought him another man after that, another man."
The doctor's eyes met Cuckoo's. She had a teacup at her rouged lips, and
had paused in the act of drinking, fascinated by the words that wound so
naturally into the legend of change which she knew and knew not.
"As if Val wasn't just the same," Julian pursued, shaking his head
slowly. "Just the same."
"You think so?" the doctor said, quickly.
"Eh?"
"You think that trance made no difference to him?"
"Why, how should it?"
Cuckoo drank her tea hastily and put the cup down.
"How should it?" Julian repeated, as if with a heavy challenge.
"It might in many ways, to his health--"
"He's stronger than ever he was."
"Or to his mind, his nature. You see no change there that might have
frightened Rip?"
"Not I. He's more of a man, good old Val, even than he was."
"Ah! You acknowledge there is a change."
"Give me some more tea, Cuckoo," Julian said, thrusting his cup towards
her.
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