And Julian looked only into Cuckoo's faded eyes for
refuge, for comfort. And Doctor Levillier--? At present he could only
wait patiently in the hope, doubtful, fragmentary of revelation.
Conversation that night was uneasy and disjointed. Cuckoo's defiance
of Valentine was fully apparent. Julian's fear, obviously grown up to
hatred, of his former friend shone clearly. There was a nakedness about
the manners of both tired woman and shattered man that was disquieting
and unusual. Valentine did not seem to notice it or to be moved about it.
If anything, it might be supposed to add to his pleasure an unnatural
revelry in being hated. Doctor Levillier, glancing from him to Julian,
found him self-involved in remembrances of Rip and Valentine. The terror
and the hate of the dog seemed to be reproduced vividly in the terror and
the hate of the man. Valentine watched both with smiling eyes and drew
draughts of power from that fountain of horror.
At last conversation failed entirely. Julian was half stretched on the
divan, gazing at Cuckoo as one who aspires to salvation. It was apparent
that he was fully awake to the terror of his own situation; that he
pierced the depths of the abyss into which he had fallen, in which he lay
crippled, prisoned, ruined.
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