They both threw a rapid glance upon the room, whose dull green draperies returned their inquiry with the complete indifference of artistic inanimation.
"Who the devil's got in here ?" Julian repeated, with the savage accent of extreme uneasiness.
"Nobody," Valentine replied.

"You know the thing's impossible." "Impossible or not, somebody has found means to get in." Valentine shook his head.
"Then you were lying ?" "Julian, what are you saying?
Don't go too far." "Either you were, or else a man has been sitting at that table between us, and I have held his hand, the hand of some stranger.

Ouf!" He shook his broad shoulders in an irrepressible shudder.
"I was not lying, Julian.

I tell you so, and I mean it." Valentine's eyes met Julian's, and Julian believed him.
"Put your hands on the table again," Julian said.
Valentine obeyed, and Julian laid his beside them, linking one of his little fingers tightly in one of Valentine's, and at the same time shutting his eyes.

After a long pause he grew visibly whiter, and hastily unlinked his finger.
"No, damn it, Val, I hadn't hold of your hand.