Flames | Page 2

The melodies of wandering organs sang in
his ascetic ears, not once, nor twice, but many times a week. The
milk-boy came, it must be presumed, to pay his visit in the morning;
and the sparrows made the air alive, poising above the chimneys,
instead of the wild eagles, whose home is near the sun. Valentine was a
modern young man of twenty-four, dealt at the Army and Navy Stores,

was extremely well off, and knew everybody. He belonged to the best
clubs and went occasionally to the best parties. His tailor had a
habitation in Sackville Street, and his gloves came from the Burlington
Arcade. He often lunched at the Berkeley and frequently dined at
Willis's. Also he had laughed at the antics of Arthur Roberts, and gazed
through a pair of gold-mounted opera-glasses at Empire ballets and at
the discreet juggleries of Paul Cinquevalli. The romance of cloistered
saintliness was not his. If it had been he might never have rebelled. For
how often it is romance which makes a home for religion in the heart of
man, romance which feathers the nest of purity in which the hermit
soul delights to dwell! Is it not that bizarre silence of the Algerian
waste which leads many a Trappist to his fate, rather than the strange
thought of God calling his soul to heavenly dreams and ecstatic
renunciations? Is it not the wild poetry of the sleeping snows by night
that gives to the St. Bernard monk his holiest meditations? When the
organ murmurs, and he kneels in that remote chapel of the clouds to
pray, is it not the religion of his wonderful earthly situation and
prospect that speaks to him loudly, rather than the religion of the far-off
Power whose hands he believes to hold the threads of his destinies?
Even the tonsure is a psalm to some, and the robe and cowl a litany.
The knotted cord is a mass and the sandal a prayer.
But Valentine had been a saint by temperament, it seemed, and would
be a saint by temperament to the end. He had not been scourged to a
prayerful attitude by sorrow or by pain. Tears had not made a sea to
float him to repentance or to purity. Apparently he had been given what
men call goodness as others are given moustaches or a cheerful temper.
When his contemporaries wondered at him, he often found himself
wondering still more at them. Why did they love coarse sins? he
thought. Why did they fling themselves down, like dogs, to roll in offal?
He could not understand, and for a long time he did not wish to
understand. But one night the wish came to him, and he expressed it to
his bosom friend, Julian Addison.
CHAPTER II
A QUESTION OF EXCHANGE

Most of us need an opposite to sit by the hearth with us sometimes, and
to stir us to wonder or to war. Julian was Valentine's singularly
complete and perfect opposite, in nature if not in deeds. But, after all, it
is the thoughts that are of account rather than the acts, to a mind like
Valentine's. He knew that Julian's nature was totally unlike his own, so
singularly unlike that Julian struck just the right note to give the
strength of a discord to the chord--that often seemed a common
chord--of his own harmony. Long ago, for this reason, or for no special
reason, he had grown to love Julian. Theirs was a fine, clean specimen
of friendship. How fine, Valentine never rightly knew until this
evening.
They were sitting together in Valentine's flat in that hour when he
became serious and expansive. He had rather a habit of becoming
serious toward midnight, especially if he was with only one person; and
no desire to please interfered with his natural play of mind and of
feeling when he was with Julian. To affect any feeling with Julian
would have seemed like being on conventional terms with an element,
or endeavouring to deceive one's valet about one's personal habits.
Long ago Julian and he had, in mind, taken up their residence together,
fallen into the pleasant custom of breakfasting, lunching, and dining on
all topics in common. Valentine knew of no barriers between them.
And so, now, as they sat smoking, he expressed his mood without fear
or hesitation.
The room in which they were was small. It was named the tentroom,
being hung with dull-green draperies, which hid the ceiling and fell
loosely to the floor on every side. A heavy curtain shrouded the one
door. On the hearth flickered a fire, before which lay Valentine's
fox-terrier, Rip. Julian was half lying down on a divan in an unbuttoned
attitude. Valentine leaned forward in an arm-chair. They were smoking
cigarettes.
"Julian," Valentine