g 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 flashing 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 passion. 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