“I understand you,” Julian whispered to the little doctor.  “Yes, you are right.  He is a great reason why what you think may be true.  And yet”—­here Julian lowered his voice to a breath, lest he might disturb the player—­“he is not religious, as—­as—­well, as you are.  Forgive the allusion—.”

“Are the angels religious?” said Doctor Levillier.  “Why should you refrain, my dear boy?  But you are right.  There is a curious unconsciousness about Cresswell—­about Valentine—­which seems to exclude even definite religious belief as something in a way self-conscious, and so impossible to him.  There is an extraordinary strain of the child in Cresswell, such as I conceive to be in unearthly beings, who have never had the power to sin.  And the best-behaved, sweetest child in the world might catch flies or go to sleep during the Litany or a sermon.  This very absence of controversial or dogmatic religion gives Valentine much of his power, seems positively to lift him higher than religionists of any creed.”

“You think—­you think that perhaps it is something in him of which he is unconscious which does so much for me?”

“Perhaps it is.”

Valentine now glided into an accompaniment, and began to sing.  And the doctor and Julian ceased to talk.  Valentine certainly did not sing with such peculiar skill as he showed in playing, but he had a charming voice which he used with great ease, and he never sang a single note, or phrased a passage, without complete intelligence and understanding of his composer.  Only he lacked power.  This scarcely interfered with the pleasure he could give in a drawing-room, and to-night both Levillier and Julian were rather in a mood for supreme delicacy than for great passion.  They listened with silent pleasure for a time.  Then Levillier said: 

“Do you remark how wonderfully the timbre of Cresswell’s voice expresses the timbre of his mind?  The parallel is exact.”

Julian nodded.

“That is his soul written in sound,” the doctor added.

It was at this point that Valentine ceased and got up from the piano.

“I must smoke too,” he said.  “No, not a cigar, I’ll have a cigarette to-night.”

“You are fond of that picture, Cresswell?” said Doctor Levillier as Valentine sat down.

“‘The Merciful Knight’?  Yes, I love it.  Have you told Julian your opinion of our sittings, doctor?”

“No.  He didn’t ask me for it.”

“I should be glad to have it, all the same,” Julian said.

“Well, my opinion is entirely adverse to your proceedings,” Levillier said, with his usual frankness.

“You are, in fact, at the opposite pole from Marr,” Julian answered.

“Marr!  Who is Marr?  I never heard of him.”

“Nor I, until the other evening,” Julian said.  “But now I see him every day.  He was at the theatre to-night.  I saw him as we came out.”

“What is he, a spiritualist?  A professional?”