"Yes, for the worse. It was a beautiful room, one of the most beautiful in London." A momentary change came over Julian. He dropped his hard manner, which seemed an assumption to cover inward discomfort or shame. "Yes," he said almost regretfully. "I suppose it was. But it's gayer now, got more things in it. Full of memories this room is." The last remark was evidently put forth as a feeler, to find out what Valentine had been talking about. Dr. Levillier was habitually truthful, although he could be very reserved if occasion seemed to require it. At present he preferred to be frank. "Memories of women," he remarked. "Oh, you've heard?" "That several tastes helped to make his room the pandemonium which it is. Yes." "You're severe, doctor." "Perhaps you like the room for its memories, Addison." Julian looked doubtful. "I don't know. I suppose so," he hesitated. "By the way, is there among these vagrant memories of Circassians, Greeks, and Italians anything chosen by Cuckoo Bright?" Julian started violently. "Cuckoo Bright," he exclaimed, "what do you know of her?" As he spoke Valentine strolled into the room dressed for dinner. He was drawing on a pair of lavender gloves, and looked down sideways at his coat to see if his buttonhole of three very pale and very perfectly matched pink roses was quite straight. "Cuckoo Bright?" he echoed. "Does everybody know her, then? How came she into your strict life, doctor?" Doctor Levillier noticed that Valentine, like Julian, carefully set him aside as a being in some different sphere, much as a great many people insist on setting clergymen. This fact alone showed that he was talking with two strangers, and seemed to give the lie to long years of the most friendly and almost brotherly intercourse. "Is my life so strict, then?" he asked gently. "I think little Cuckoo would call it so, eh, Julian?" He glanced at Julian and laughed softly, still drawing on his gloves. In evening dress he looked curiously young and handsome, and facially less altered than the doctor had at first supposed him to be. Still there was a difference even in the face; but it was so slight that only a keen observer would have noticed it. The almost frigid and glacial purity had floated away from it like a lovely cloud. Now it was unveiled, and there was something hard and staring about it. The features were still beautiful, but their ivory lustre was gone. A line was penciled, too, here and there. Yet the doctor could understand that even Valentine's own man might not appreciate the difference. 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. But Valentine broke in: