Flames | Page 5

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 minutes, we'd got into spiritualism and all that sort of thing. He is evidently a believer in it, calls himself an occultist."
"But do you mean to tell me he said souls could be exchanged at will? Come, Julian?"
"I won't say that. But he set no limit at all to what can be done. He declares that if people seriously set themselves to develop the latent powers that lie hidden within them, they can do almost anything. Only they must be en rapport. Each must respond closely, definitely, to the other. Now, you and I are as much in sympathy with one another as any two men in London, I suppose."
"Surely!"
"Then half the battle's won--according to Marr."
"You are joking."
"He wasn't. He would declare that, with time and perseverance, we could accomplish an exchange of souls."
Valentine laughed.
"Well, but how?"
Julian laughed too.
"Oh, it seems absurd--but he'd tell us to sit together."
"Well, we are sitting together now."
"No; at a table, I mean."
"Table-turning!" Valentine cried, with a sort of contempt. "That is for children, and for all of us at Christmas, when we want to make fools of ourselves."
"Just what I am inclined to think. But Marr--and he's really a very smart, clever chap, Val--denies it. He swears it is possible for two people who sit together often to get up a marvellous sympathy, which lasts on even when they are no longer sitting. He says you can even see your companion's thoughts take form in the darkness before your eyes, and pass in procession like living things."
"He must be mad."
"Perhaps. I don't know. If he is, he can put his madness to you very lucidly, very ingeniously."
Valentine stroked the white back of Rip meditatively with his foot.
"You have never sat, have you?" he asked.
"Never."
"Nor I. I have always thought it an idiotic and very dull way of wasting one's time. Now, what on earth can a table have to do with one's soul?"
"I don't know. What is one's soul?"
"One's essence, I suppose; the inner light that spreads its rays outward in actions, and that is extinguished, or expelled, at the hour of death."
"Expelled, I think."
"I think so too. That which is so full of strange power cannot surely die so soon. Even my soul, so frigid, so passionless, has, you say, held you back from sins like a leash of steel, And I did not even try to forge the steel. If we could exchange souls, would yours hold me back in the same way?"
"No doubt."
"I wonder," Valentine said thoughtfully. After a moment he added, "shall we make this absurd experiment of sitting, just for a phantasy?"
"Why not? It would be rather fun."
"It might be. We will just do it once to see whether you can get some of my feelings, and I some of yours."
"That's it. But you could never get mine. I know you too well, Val. You're my rock of defence. You've kept me straight because you're so straight yourself; and, with that face, you'll never alter. If anything should happen, it will be that you'll drag me up to where you are. I shan't drag you down to my level, you old saint!"
And he laid his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder.
Valentine smiled.
"Your level is not low," he said.
"No, perhaps; but, by Jove, it could be, though. If you hadn't been chucked into the world, I often think the devil must have had me altogether. You keep him