As Julian came into the room, which was lit only by wax candles, he could not help comparing it with the room he had just left, in which the body of Marr lay.  The atmosphere of a house is a strange thing, and almost as definite to the mind as is an appearance to the eye.  A sensitive nature takes it in like a breath of fetid or of fresh air.  The atmosphere of the European Hotel had been sinister and dreary, as of a building consecrated to hidden deeds, and inhabited mainly by wandering sinners.  This home of a great doctor was open-hearted and receptive, frank and refined.  The sleeping dogs, heaving gently in fawn-coloured beatitude, set upon it the best hall-mark.  It was a house—­judging at least by this room—­for happy rest.  Yet it was the abode of incessant work, as the great world knew well.  This sanctum alone was the shrine of lotos-eating.  The doctor sometimes laughingly boasted that he had never insulted it by even so much as writing a post-card within its four walls.

Julian stroked the dogs, who woke to wink upon him majestically, and sat down.  Lawler quietly departed, and he was left alone.  When he first entered the house he had been disappointed at the departure of Valentine.  Now he felt rather glad to have the doctor to himself for a quiet half-hour.  A conversation of two people is, under certain circumstances, more complete than a conversation of three, however delightful the third may chance to be.  Julian placed Valentine before all the rest of the world.  Nevertheless, to-night he was glad that Valentine had gone home to bed.  It seems sometimes as if affection contributes to the making of a man self-conscious.  Julian had a vague notion that the presence of his greatest friend to-night might render him self-conscious.  He scarcely knew why.  Then he looked at the mastiffs, and wondered at the extraordinary difference between men and the companion animals whom they love and who love them.  What man, however natural, however independent and serene, could emulate the majestic and deliberate abandon of a big dog courted and caressed by a blazing fire and a soft rug?  Man has not the dignity of soul to be so grandly natural.  Yet his very pert self-consciousness, the fringed petticoats of affectation which he wears, give him the kennel, the collar, the muzzle, the whip, weapons of power to bring the dog to subjection.  And Julian, as he watched Rupert and Mab wrapped in large lethargic dreams, found himself pitying them, as civilized man vaguely pities all other inhabitants of the round world.  Poor old things!  Sombre agitations were not theirs.  They had nothing to aim at or to fight against.  No devils and angels played at football with their souls.  Their liaisons were clear, uncomplicated by the violent mental drum-taps that set the passions marching so often at a quickstep in the wrong direction.  And Julian knelt down on the hearth-rug and laid his strong young hands on their broad heads.  Slowly they opened their