Still the green draperies, veiled
walls, windows and door, meeting in a point at the ceiling. The fire
danced and shone. The electric moons gleamed with a twilight softness.
Only Rip was gone from the broad and cushioned divan upon which he had
loved to lie, half sleeping, half awake, while his master talked and
Julian listened or replied. The room was the same, and this very fact
emphasized the transformation of the two men who sat in it. They leaned
in their low chairs on each side of the fire, thinly veiled from time to
time in cigarette-smoke. No sound of London reached them in this small
room. Even the voice of the winter wind whispered and sang in vain.
Stifled by the thick draperies, it failed in its effort to gain their
attention, and sighed among the chimney-tops the chagrin of its soul. The
face of Julian was drawn and heavy. His eyes were downcast. His arms hung
over the cushioned elbows of his chair, in which he sat very low, in the
shrivelled posture of one desperately fatigued. From time to time he
opened his lips in a sort of dull gape, then shut his teeth tightly as if
he ground them together. The drooping lids of his eyes were covered with
little lines, and there were deeper lines at the corners of his mouth.
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