It struck the doctor that here was an excellent opportunity for confirming or abandoning his dreary suspicion. Alone with Valentine, he would be able to lead the conversation in any direction he chose. He was glad that Julian had not returned, and resolved to use this opportunity.
They went into the dining-room and sat down to dinner. Valentine was apparently rather amused at playing the host in another man's house. It was novel, and entertained him. He was obviously in splendid spirits, ate with good appetite and drank the champagne with an elation not unlike the elation of the dancing wine. More than once, too, he alluded to Julian's absence and probable occupation, as if both the one and the other were bouquets in his cap, or laurels in some crown which he alone could wear. Dr. Levillier noticed it and sought to draw him on in that direction, and to lead him to some open acknowledgment of his share in Julian's rapidly proceeding ruin. But Valentine changed the conversation into another channel without apparently observing his companion's intention, or deliberately frustrating it. He chattered of a thousand things, mostly of topics that are the common converse of London dinner-tables. The doctor joined in. To a listening stranger the two men would have seemed old friends, pleasantly at ease and secure with one another. Yet the doctor was doing detective duty all the time. And Valentine! was he not secretly revelling in that destruction of a human soul that was galloping apace?
Course succeeded course. At last dessert was placed upon the table.
Valentine raised his glass with a smile:
"Let us drink the health of Julian's absence," he said. "For you and I get on so perfectly together."
"Rather a cruel toast in Julian's own rooms," said the doctor.
"Ah, but he's happy enough where he is."
"You know where that is?"
"No—I only suspect," Valentine cried gaily. "In the wilds of South Kensington, in a tiny house, all Morris tapestry and Burne-Jones stained glass, dwells the latest siren who has been calling to our Ulysses. He is there, I suspect. Wait a moment, though. His telegram might tell us. Where was it sent from?"
He sprang up, went to the writing-table near the window, and caught up the crumpled thin paper that he had flung down there. Smoothing it out, he read, holding the paper close to a wax candle:
"Handed in at the Marylebone Road office at 5:50."