"Why d'you come, then?" she continued, with a certain desperation. "There ain't nothin' here to bring you. I know that well enough." She cast a comprehensive glance round over the badly furnished room. "Nothin' at all," she added with a sigh. While she spoke Julian began to wonder, too, why he came, why he liked to come there. As Cuckoo said, there was nothing at all to bring him so often. He liked her, he was sorry for her, he had even a deep-running sympathy for her, but he did not love her. Yet he was fascinated to come to her, and there were sometimes moments when he seemed taken possession of, led by the hand, to that squalid room and that squalid presence in it. Why was that? What led him? He could not tell. "I like coming here," he said; "and of course it's nothing to Valentine where I go." Cuckoo glanced up hastily at the words. A little serpent enmity surely hissed in them. Julian spoke as if he were a man with some rebel feeling at his heart. But the serpent glided and was gone as he added: "I'm always with him when I'm not with you, for I haven't seen the doctor for ages." "The doctor! Who's that, then," asked Cuckoo. "Doctor Levillier. Surely you've heard me talk about him." "No, dearie." "Oh, he's a nerve-doctor, and a sort of little saint, lives for his work, and is a deuced religious chap, never does anything, you know." Julian looked at her. "Oh," she said. "And believes in everything. He's a dear little chap, the kindest heart in the world, good to every one, no matter who it is. He's devoted to Valentine." "Eh?" said Cuckoo, with a long-drawn intonation of astonishment. "I say he's devoted to Valentine," Julian repeated rather irritably. His temper was much less certain and sunny lately than of old. "But I believe he's devoted to every one he can do any good to. We used to see him continually, but he's been abroad for weeks, looking after a bad case, a Russian Grand Duke in Italy, who would have him, and pays him all the fees he'd be getting in London. He'll be coming back directly, I think." "Where does he live?" said Cuckoo, ever so carelessly.