Flames is a Webnovel created by Robert Hichens.
This lightnovel is currently completed.
“There’s a man’s good-bye to a man,” he said. “Better sort of thing than a man’s good-bye to a woman, isn’t it?”
“Rather!” she said hastily, and moved back into the sitting-room.
She stepped on something, and bent down to pick it up. It was Marr’s photograph.
“What’s that?” Julian asked.
“Nothing,” she said, concealing it. She had a foolish fancy that even the photograph of the creature she had feared and hated might spoil that good-bye of theirs. Yet even as it was, when Julian had gone she still seemed unsatisfied.
She was a woman after all, and woman is most feminine in her farewells.
CHAPTER II
VALENTINE SINGS
When Valentine heard of the scene in Marylebone Road he smiled.
“How extraordinary women are,” he said. “A man might give his life to them, I suppose, yet never understand them.”
“It would be rather jolly–making that gift, I mean,” said Julian.
“You think so? Since last night.”
“I want to talk to you about that, Valentine, d’you blame me?”
“Not a bit.”
“Only wonder at me?”
“I don’t even say that.”
“No; but of course you must wonder at me.”
Julian spoke almost wistfully, and as if he wanted Valentine to sweep away the suggestion. Last night they had been comrades. To-day, in the light and in the calm of afternoon, Valentine seemed much more remote, and Julian felt for the first time a sense of degradation. He was uneasily conscious that he might have fallen in Valentine’s esteem. But Valentine rea.s.sured him.
“I don’t wonder at you, either, Julian; I simply envy you, and metaphorically sit at your feet.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Not quite; and I may not always be sitting there, for I believe I have really got a little bit of your soul. Last night I seemed to feel it stirring within me, and I liked its personality.”
“You did seem different last night,” Julian said, looking at Valentine with a keen interest. “Can it be possible that those sittings of ours have really had any effect?”
“On me they have; not on you. You haven’t caught my coldness, but I have gained something of your warmth. Doesn’t that perhaps show that mine was, after all, the wrong nature?”
“I don’t know,” Julian said doubtfully; “you look the same.”
“Do I? Exactly?”
Valentine spoke with a sort of whimsical defiance, as if almost daring Julian to answer, Yes. And Julian, too, seemed suddenly doubtful whether he had stated what was the fact. He looked closely at Valentine.
“Do you think your face has changed? Do you mean to say that?” he asked.
“I only fancied there might be a little more humanity in it, that was all.”
“Once or twice I have thought I noticed something,” Julian said, still doubtfully; “but I believe it’s imagination. It doesn’t stay.”
“When it does, I suppose I shall be able thoroughly to appreciate all your temptations. Don’t you begin to think now it’s good to have them.”
“I don’t know,” Julian said. But he was conscious that there had come a change in his att.i.tude of mind towards temptation. Some men glory in resisting temptation, others in yielding to it. Hitherto Julian had not been able to range himself in either of these two opposed camps. He had merely hated his faculty for being tempted. Did he entirely hate it now?
He could not say so to himself, whatever he might say to others, but something kept him from making confession of the truth to Valentine. So he professed ignorance of his own exact state of feeling; really, had he a.n.a.lyzed his reticence, it sprang from a fine desire to give forth no breath that might tarnish the clear mirror of Valentine’s nature. He would not admit a change that might make his friend again fall into the absurd dissatisfaction which he had combated on the night of their first sitting in the tent-room. While they talked the afternoon had fallen into a creeping twilight. In the twilight the front door bell rang.
“Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,” Valentine said, quoting Poe. “It must be the doctor.”
Julian reddened suddenly.
“I hope not,” he said.
“What?” Valentine cried. “You don’t want our little doctor?”
“Somehow not–to-day.”
The door opened and Doctor Levillier entered. Valentine greeted him warmly. They had not met since the night of the affray with the mastiffs.
In Julian’s manner there was a touch of awkwardness as he shook hands with the doctor. Levillier did not seem to notice it. He looked very tired and rather depressed.
“Cresswell,” he said, “I have come to you for a tonic.”
“Doctor coming to patient!”
“Doctors take medicine oftener than you may suppose. I’m in bad spirits to-day. I’ve been trying to cure too many people lately. It’s hard work.”
“It must be. Sit down and forget. Imagine the world beautifully incurable and your occupation consequently gone.”
The doctor sat down, saying:
“My imagination stops short at that feat.”
He kept silence for a moment, then he said:
“You know what I want.”
“No,” Valentine answered. “But I’ll do anything. You know that.”
“I want your music.”
Valentine suddenly became unresponsive. He didn’t speak at first, and both Julian and the doctor glanced at him in some surprise.