'Father!' Julian said again. He held the wrist with the tensest effort of his fingers, and the eyes with the tensest effort of his will. He saw the accentuated cavities of the priest's thin face, and the pinched lines of suffering at the corners of the mouth. Paul had been strong, energetic, masculine. Now his speech was random, and he quavered as a palsied old man. Even his personal cleanliness had, in a measure, deserted him; his soutane was stained, his hair lank and greasy. He confronted Julian with a scared and piteous cowardice, compelled, yet seeking escape, then as he slowly steadied himself under Julian's grip the succeeding emotions were reflected in his eyes: first shame; then a horrified grasping after his self-respect; finally, most touching of all, confidence and gratitude; and Julian, seeing the cycle completed and knowing that Paul was again master of himself, released the wrist and asked, in the most casual voice at his command, 'All right?' He had the sensation of having saved some one from falling.
Paul nodded without speaking. Then he began to ask Julian as to how he had employed the last eighteen months, and they talked for some time without reference to the unaccountable scene that had passed between them. Paul talked with his wonted gentleness and interest, the strangeness of his manner entirely vanished; Julian could have believed it a hallucination, but for the single trace left in the priest's disordered hair. Red strands hung abjectly down his back. Julian found his eyes drawn towards them in a horrible fascination, but, because he knew the scene must be buried unless Paul himself chose to revive it, he kept his glance turned away with conscious deliberation.
He was relieved when the priest left him.
'Gone to do his hair'—the phrase came to his mind as he saw the priest walk briskly away, tripping with the old familiar stumble over his soutane, and saw the long wisps faintly red on the black garment. 'Like a woman—exactly!' he uttered in revolt, clenching his hand at man's degradation. 'Like a woman, long hair, long skirt; ready to listen to other people's troubles. Unnatural existence; unnatural? it's unnatural to the point of viciousness. No wonder the man's mind is unhinged.'
He was really troubled about his friend, the more so that loyalty would keep him silent and allow him to ask no questions. He thought, however, that if Eve volunteered any remarks about Paul it would not be disloyal to listen. The afternoon was hot and still; Eve would be indoors. The traditions of his English life still clung to him sufficiently to make him chafe vaguely against the idleness of the days; he resented the concession to the climate. A demoralising place. A place where priests let their hair grow long, and went temporarily mad....
He walked in the patchy shade of the lemon-trees towards the house in a distressed and irascible frame of mind. He longed for action; his mind was never content to dwell long unoccupied. He longed for the strife the elections would bring. The house glared very white, and all the green shutters were closed; behind them, he knew, the windows would be closed too. Another contradiction. In England, when one wanted to keep a house cool, one opened the windows wide.
He crossed the veranda; the drawing-room was dim and empty. How absurd to paint sham flames on the ceiling in a climate where the last thing one wanted to remember was fire. He called,—
'Eve!'
Silence answered him. A book lying on the floor by the writing-table showed him that she had been in the room; no one else in that house would read Albert Samain. He picked it up and read disgustedly,—