Most women have watched some woman slip from the purity and hope and innocence of girlhood into the faded hunger and painted and wrinkled energies of animalism.  Such tragedies are no more unfamiliar to us than are the tragedies of Shakespeare.  And such a tragedy—­not complete yet, but at a third-act point, perhaps—­now faced Doctor Levillier in Julian.  The wall that had been so straight and trim, so finely built and carefully preserved, was crumbling fast to decay.  A ragged youth slunk in the face, beggared of virtue, of true cheerfulness, of all lofty aspiration and high intent.  It was youth still, for nothing can entirely massacre that gift of the gods, except inevitable Time.  But it was youth sadder than age, because it had run forward to meet the wearinesses that dog the steps of age but that should never be at home with age’s enemy.  Julian had been the leaping child of healthy energy.  He was now quite obviously the servant of lassitude.  His foot left the ground as if with a tired reluctance, and his hands were fidgetty, yet nerveless.  The eyes, that looked at the doctor and looked away by swift turns, burned with a haggard eagerness unutterably different from their former bright vivacity.  Beneath them wrinkles crept on the puffy white face as worms about a corpse.  Busy and tell-tale, they did not try to conceal the story of the body into which they had prematurely cut themselves.  Nor did Julian’s features choose to back up any reserve his mind might possibly feel about acknowledging the consummate alteration of his life.  They proclaimed, as from a watch-tower, the arrival of enemies.  The cheeks were no longer firm, but heavy and flaccid.  The mouth was deformed by the down-drawn looseness of the sensualist, and the complexion beaconed with an unnatural scarlet that was a story to be read by every street-boy.

Yet, even so, the doctor, as he looked pitifully and with a gnawing grief upon Julian, felt not the mysterious thrill communicated to him by Valentine.  These two men, these old time friends of his, were both in a sense strangers.  But it was as if he had at least heard much of Julian, knew much of him, understood him, comprehended exactly why he was a stranger.  Valentine was the total stranger, the unknown, the undivined.  Long ago the doctor had foreseen the possibility of the Julian who now stood before him.  He had never foreseen the possibility of the new Valentine.  The one change was summed up in an instant.  The other walked in utter mystery.  The doctor had been swift to notice Julian’s furtive glance, and was equally swift in banishing all trace of surprise from his own manner.  So they met with a fair show of cordiality, and Julian developed a little of his old cheerfulness.

“Val’s dressing,” he said.  “Well, there’s plenty of time.  By the way, how’s your Russian, doctor?”

“Better.”

“You’ve cured him!  Bravo!”

“I hope I have persuaded him to cure himself.”