I hate that curtain.

If I were you I would have it taken down altogether." Valentine looked at him in surprise.

He had uttered the words with an energy almost violent.

But even as Valentine looked Julian switched off the electric light and the leaping darkness hid his face.
"Come now.

Business! Business!" he cried.
And again they sat with their hands loosely on the table, not touching each other.
Valentine felt that Julian was being less frank with him than usual.
Perhaps for this reason he was immediately conscious that they were not so much in sympathy as on the two former occasions of their sittings.
Or there might have been some other reason which he could not identify.
It is certain that he gradually became acutely aware of a stifling sense of constraint, which he believed to be greatly intensified by the surrounding darkness and silence.