Give me some more absinthe."
The doctor watched his excitement growing as he drank. It seemed an
excitement adverse to Valentine.
"One may have too much black coffee," he suddenly said.
"And that exerts a very depressing effect upon the nerves," said the
doctor, taking him literally. "Neither you nor I are likely to sleep well
to-night, Addison."
"I never sleep well now, doctor," Julian said.
All this time he continued to regard Valentine in the peculiar,
observant manner of a stranger who is trying to make up his mind
about the unfamiliar man at whom he looks.
"Then you should not drink black coffee."
As he spoke a very faint sound of bells penetrated to the tentroom.
"The psychological moment!" said Valentine.
And then they were all silent, listening.
To the doctor, the prey of magic art since the soft cry of the lady of
the feathers, the bells seemed magical and strange to-night, thin and
dreamy and remote. They rang outside the circle of the flames, yet they,
too, had an eerie meaning. Nor did their music come, he thought, from any
church tower, from any belfry, summoned by the tugging hands of men. Very
softly they rang. Their sound was deadened by the thick draperies. They
ceased.
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