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He forgot Doctor Levillier. He remembered only himself and his own strength, which he was now to test to its foundations. And when he woke again to thoughts of others, it was only to laugh at the force arrayed against him. The lady of the feathers moved, to his fancy, like the most piteous of puppets, a jeering fate manipulating the strings.
And the hideous eccentricity of the music, its wanton desolation, deepened until both Levillier and Julian were pale under its spell, shrank from its ardent, its merciless and lambent sarcasm against all things refined or beautiful.
As Levillier listened to it amazed, he found that he did not instinctively connect the vulgarity with any human traits, or translate the notes into acts within his experience.
The manner, however, was more violently altered. It was that which made the doctor think again and intensely of Cuckoo's vague yet startling statement. "Where did you meet Cuckoo, doctor?" It was Julian who spoke, and the words were uttered with some excitement. "I have met her," Levillier replied. It was sufficiently evident that he did not intend to say where.
What can it mean?" "Don't let us bother too much about it." "Excellent advice," said Levillier, from the doorway. Julian stood still. "Doctor, I can understand your attitude," he said. "But what an amazing being you are, Val. You are as calm and collected as if you had sat and held converse with spirits all through your life.
"No; I am not dead." And again he smiled quietly, as a man smiles at some secret thought which tickles him or whips the sense of humour in him till, like an obeying dog, it dances. Dr. Levillier, having regained his feet, stood silently looking at Valentine, all his professional instinct wide awake to note this apparent resurrection from the dead. "You here, doctor!" said Valentine.
Then he softly leant forward, extended his arms in the air, and made the motion of clapping his hands close to Julian's face. In reality he did not touch one hand with the other, yet Julian cried out: "I heard you clap them then." "I have not clapped them at all," Levillier said. Julian expressed extreme surprise. "You see how very easy it is for the senses to be deceived," the doctor added.
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.
Nor did the considerable difference between his age and the ages of the two youths in any way interfere with their pleasant intercourse. For Levillier had a heart that was ageless. The corroding years did not act as acid upon it. All his sympathies were as keen, all his power of enjoyment was as great, as when he had been a delightfully gay and delightfully pleasant boy at school.
Only men normally hear but one, at most two or three, of the many feminine melodies. And now Doctor Levillier heard them all, as a man may hear those differing songs already recounted, simultaneously and clearly.
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