n everlasting storm."

"I wonder!" Valentine said. "How curious that I should protect you.
I am glad it is so. And yet, Julian, in spite of what you say, I would
give a great deal to change souls with you, if only for a day or two.
You will laugh at me, but I do long to feel a real, keen temptation.
Those agonizing struggles of holy men that one reads of, what can they
be like? I can hardly imagine. There have been ascetics who have wept,
and dashed themselves down on the ground, and injured, wounded their
bodies to distract their thoughts from vice. To me they seem as madmen.
You know the story of the monk who rescued a great courtesan from her
life of shame. He placed her in a convent and went into the desert. But
her image haunted him, maddened him. He slunk back to the convent, and
found her dying in the arms of God. And he tried to drag her away, that
she might sin only once again with him, with him, her saviour. But she
died, giving herself to God, and he went out cursing and blaspheming.
This is only a dramatic fable to me. And yet I suppose it is a
possibility."

"Of course. Val, I could imagine myself doing as that monk did, but for
you. Only that I could never have been a monk at all."

"I am glad if I help you to any happiness, Julian. But--but--oh! to feel
temptation!"

"Oh, not to feel it! By Jove, I long to have done with the infernal thing
that's always ready to bother me. Fighting it is no fun, Val, I can tell
you. If you would like to have my soul for a day or two, I should love to
have yours in exchange."

Valentine smoked in silence for two or three minutes. His pure, pale,
beautiful face was rather wistful as he gazed at the fire.

"Why can't these affairs be managed?" he sighed out at length.

"Why can't we do just the one thing more? We can kill a man's body. We
can kill a woman's purity. And here you and I sit, the closest friends,
and neither of us can have the same experiences, as the other, even for
a moment. Why isn't it possible?"

"Perhaps it is."

"Why? How do you mean?"

"Well, of course I'm rather a sceptic, and entirely an ignoramus. But
I met a man the other day who would have laughed at us for doubting.
He was an awfully strange fellow. His name is Marr. I met him at Lady
Crichton's."

"Who is he?"

"Haven't an idea. I never saw or heard of him before. We talked a good
deal at dessert. He came over from the other side of the table to sit by
me, and somehow, in five minu