Flames Part 4

"That is what I am wondering."

He flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"But I don't come to any conclusion," he presently added, meditatively.

"We sit in the dark for an hour and a quarter, with our hands solemnly spread out upon a table; we don't talk; the table doesn't move; we hear no sound; we see nothing; we feel nothing that we have not felt before.

And yet we find the function interesting. This problem of sensation is simply insoluble. I cannot work it out."

"It is awfully puzzling," said Julian. "I suppose our nerves must have been subtly excited because the thing was an absolute novelty."

"Possibly. But, if so, we are a couple of children, mere schoolboys."

"That's rather refres.h.i.+ng, however undignified. If we sit long enough, we may even recover our long-lost babyhood."

And so they laughed the matter easily away. Soon afterwards, however, Julian got up to go home to his chambers. Valentine went towards the door, intending to open it and get his friend's coat. Suddenly he stopped.

"Strange!" he exclaimed.

"What's the row?"

"Look at the door, Julian."

"Well?"

"Don't you see?"

"What?"

"The curtain is half drawn back again."

Julian gave vent to a long, low whistle.

"So it is!"

"It always does that when the door is opened."

"And only then, of course?"

"Of course."

"But the door hasn't been opened."

"I know."

They regarded each other almost uneasily. Then Valentine added, with a short laugh:

"I can't have drawn it thoroughly over the door when Wade went away."

"I suppose not. Well, good-night, Val."

"Good-night. Shall we sit again tomorrow?"

"Yes; I vote we do."

Valentine let his friend out. As he shut the front door, he said to himself:

"I am positive I did draw the curtain thoroughly."

He went back into the tentroom and glanced again at the curtain.

"Yes; I am positive."

After an instant of puzzled wonder, he seemed to put the matter deliberately from him.

"Come along, Rip," he said. "Why, you are cold and miserable to-night!

Must I carry you then?"

He picked the dog up, turned out the light, and walked slowly into his bedroom.

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND SITTING

On the following night Valentine sat waiting for Julian's arrival in his drawing-room, which looked out upon Victoria Street, whereas the only window of the tentroom opened upon some waste ground where once a panorama of Jerusalem, or some notorious city, stood, and where building operations were now being generally carried on. Valentine very seldom used his drawing-room. Sometimes pretty women came to tea with him, and he did them honour there. Sometimes musicians came. Then there was always a silent group gathered round the Steinway grand piano.

For Valentine was inordinately fond of music, and played so admirably that even professionals never hurled at him a jeering "amateur!" But when Valentine was alone, or when he expected one or two men to smoke, he invariably sat in the tentroom, where the long lounges and the shaded electric light were suggestive of desultory conversation, and seemed tacitly to forbid all things that savour of a hind-leg att.i.tude.

To-night, however, some whim, no doubt, had prompted him to forsake his usual haunt. Perhaps he had been seized with a dislike for complete silence, such as comes upon men in recurring hours of depression, when the mind is submerged by a thin tide of unreasoning melancholy, and sound of one kind or another is as ardently sought as at other times it is avoided. In this room Valentine could hear the vague traffic of the dim street outside, the dull tumult of an omnibus, the furtive, flas.h.i.+ng clamour of a hansom, the cry of an occasional newsboy, explanatory of the crimes and tragedies of the pa.s.sing hour. Or perhaps the eyes of Valentine were, for the moment, weary of the monotonous green walls of his sanctum, leaning tent-wise towards the peaked apex of the ceiling, and longed to rest on the many beautiful pictures that hung in one line around his drawing-room. It seemed so, for now, as he sat in a chair before the fire, holding Rip upon his knee, his blue eyes were fixed meditatively upon a picture called "The Merciful Knight," which faced him over the mantelpiece. This was the only picture containing a figure of the Christ which Valentine possessed. He had no holy children, no Madonnas. But he loved this Christ, this exquisitely imagined dead, drooping figure, which, roused into life by an act of n.o.ble renunciation, bent down and kissed the armed hero who had been great enough to forgive his enemy. He loved those weary, tender lips, those faded limbs, the sacred tenuity of the ascetic figure, the wonderful posture of benign familiarity that was more majestic than any reserve. Yes, Valentine loved this Christ, and Julian knew it well. Often, late at night, Julian had leaned back lazily listening while Valentine played, improvising in a light so dim as to be near to darkness. And Julian had noticed that the player's eyes perpetually sought this picture, and rested on it, while his soul, through the touch of the fingers, called to the soul of music that slept in the piano, stirred it from sleep, carried it through strange and flas.h.i.+ng scenes, taught it to strive and to agonize, then hushed it again to sleep and peace. And as Julian looked from the picture to the player, who seemed drawing inspiration from it, he often mutely compared the imagined beauty of the soul of the Christ with the known beauty of the soul of his friend. And the two lovelinesses seemed to meet, and to mingle as easily as two streams one with the other. Yet the beauty of the Christ soul sprang from a strange parentage, was a sublime inheritance, had been tried in the fiercest fires of pity and of pain.

The beauty of Valentine's soul seemed curiously innate, and mingled with a dazzling snow of almost inhuman purity. His was not a great soul that had striven successfully, and must always strive. His was a soul that easily triumphed, that was almost coldly perfect without effort, that had surely never longed even for a moment to fall, had never desired and refused the shadowy pleasures of pa.s.sion. The wonderful purity of his friend's face continually struck Julian anew. It suggested to him the ivory peak of an Alp, the luminous pallor of a pearl. What other young man in London looked like that? Valentine was indeed an unique figure in the modern London world. Had he strayed into it from the fragrant pages of a missal, or condescended to it from the beatific vistas of some far-off Paradise? Julian had often wondered, as he looked into the clear, calm eyes of the friend who had been for so long the vigilant, yet unconscious guardian of his soul.

To-night, as Valentine sat looking at the Christ, a curious wonder at himself came into his mind. He was musing on the confession of Julian, so long withheld, so shyly made at last. This confession caused him, for the first time, to look self-consciously upon himself, to stand away from his nature, as the artist stands away from the picture he is painting, and to examine it with a sideways head, with a peering, contracted gaze. This thing that protected a soul from sin--what was it like? What was it? He could not easily surmise. He had a clear vision of the Christ soul, of the exquisite essence of a divine individuality that prompted life to spring out of death for one perfect moment that it might miraculously reward a great human act of humanity. Yes, that soul floated before him almost visibly. He could call it up before his mind as a man can call up the vision of a supremely beautiful rose he has admired. And there was a scent from the Christ soul as ineffably delicious as the scent of the rose. But when Valentine tried to see his own soul, he could not see it.

He could not comprehend how its aspect affected others, even quite how it affected Julian. Only he could comprehend, as he looked at the Christ, its imperfection, and a longing, not felt before, came to him to be better than he was. This new aspiration was given to him by Julian's confession. He knew that well. He protected his friend now without effort. Could he not protect him more certainly with effort? Can a soul be beautiful that never strives consciously after beauty? A child's nature is beautiful in its innocence because it has never striven to be innocent. But is not an innocent woman more wonderful, more beautiful, than an innocent child? Valentine felt within him that night a distinct aspiration, and he vaguely connected it with the drooping Christ, who touched with wan, rewarding lips the ardent face of the merciful knight.

And he no longer had the desire to know desire of sin. He no longer sought to understand the power of temptation or the joy of yielding to that power. A subtle change swept over him. Whether it was permanent, or only pa.s.sing, he could not tell.

A tingling cry from the electric bell in the pa.s.sage told of Julian's arrival, and in a moment he entered. He looked gay, almost rowdy, and clapped Valentine on the shoulder rather boisterously.

"Why on earth are you in here?" he exclaimed. "Have you been playing?"

"No."

"Are you in an exalted state of mind, that demands the best parlour for its environment?"

"Hardly."

"But why then have you let out the fire in the den and enthroned yourself here?"

"A whim, Julian. I felt a strong inclination to sit in this room to-night. It seems to me a less nervous room than the other, and I want to be as cold-blooded as possible."