Flames

He paused, as if he had finished.

"But your advice, doctor?" Julian said, wondering.

"Oh, h"m! I don"t mean to give it to you, after all."

"Why?"

Doctor Levillier became enigmatic.

"Because I have just remembered that to warn is often to supply a cause of stumbling," he said.

Dr. Levillier and Julian drove together as far as the latter"s chambers that evening, and, after bidding Julian good-night, the doctor dismissed the cab and set out to walk to Harley Street. He proceeded at a leisurely pace along Piccadilly, threading his way abstractedly among the wandering wisps of painted humanity that dye the London night with rouge. Occasionally a pa.s.sing man in evening dress would bid him good-night, for he was universally known in the town. But he did not reply. With his firm round chin pressed down upon his fur coat, and his eyelids lowered, he moved thoughtfully. The problem of the relations existing between youth and life eternally fascinated him. He pondered over them now. What a strange, complicated _liaison_ it was, sometimes so happy, sometimes so disastrous, always, to him, pathetic. Youth sets up house with life as a lover sets up house with his mistress, takes an attic near the stars, or builds a mansion that amazes the street-urchins.

And they dwell together. And youth strives in every way to know his mistress. He tests her, tries her, kisses and cuffs her, gives her presents, weeps at her knees. And at first she is magical, and a wonder, and a dream, and eternity. And then, perhaps, she is a faded creature, and terrible as a lost girl whom one has known in innocence. She is grim and arid. She fills youth with a great horror and with a great fear. He dare not kiss her any more. And then, perhaps, at last he prays, "Deliver me from this bondage!" And he thinks that he knows his mistress. But, happy or sad, does he ever quite know her? Is she not always a mystery, this life, a sphinx who jealously guards a great secret?

His evening with the two boys, for so the doctor called them in his thoughts, had set him musing thus definitely. Was there not a wonder and a secret in their dual life of friendship? For is not the potent influence of one soul over another one of the marvels of time? The doctor loved Valentine as a human saint loves another saint. But he loved Julian as a saint loves a sinner. Not that he named Julian sinner, but it was impossible to be with him, observantly, sensitively, and not to feel the thrill of his warm, pa.s.sionate humanity, which cried aloud for governance, for protection. Julian could be great, with the greatness only attained by purged humanity, superior surely to the peaceful purity of angels. But he could be a castaway, oh! as much a castaway as the fainting shipwrecked man whom the hoa.r.s.e surf rolls to the sad island of a desert sea.

Without Valentine what might he not have been? And the little doctor let his imagination run loose until his light eyes were dim with absurd tears. He winked them away as he turned into Regent Street. The hour was nearly two, and the great curved thoroughfare was rather deserted.

Those few persons who were about had a curious aspect of wolves. Their eyes were watchful; their gait denoted a ghastly readiness for pause, for colloquy. Poor creatures! What was their _liaison_ with life? A thing like a cry for help in the dark. The doctor longed to be a miracle-worker, to lift up his hands, just there where he was by the New Gallery, and to say, "Be ye healed!" He had a true love for every human thing. And that love sometimes seared his heart, despite his fervent faith and hope.

But now, as he pursued his way, a physical sensation intruded itself upon his mind, and gradually excluded all his reflections. A sense of bodily uneasiness came upon him, of a curious irritation and contempt, mingled with fear. He at first ascribed it to the coffee he had imprudently drunk at Valentine"s flat, and to the strength of the two cigars he had smoked, or to some ordinary, trifling cause of diet. But by the time he crossed Oxford Street, and was in the desert of Vere Street, he felt that there was a reason for his distress, outside of him.

"I am being followed," he said to himself. "I am being followed, and by some utterly abominable person."

He went by the Chapel, and struck across to the right, not looking behind him, but a.n.a.lyzing his feelings. Being strongly intuitive, he had no need to turn his head. He knew now for certain the cause of his uneasiness.

Some dreadful human being was very near to him, full of hateful thoughts, sinister recollections, possibly evil intentions. Something, the very vibrations of the night air, it might be, carried, as a telegraph wire conveys a message, the soul-aroma of this human being to the doctor. As he walked on, not hurrying, he mutely diagnosed the heart of this unseen being. It seemed full of deadly disease. Never had he suspected man or woman of such wickedness as he divined here; never had he felt from any of his kind such a sick repulsion as from this unseen monster who was journeying steadily in his steps. Doctor Levillier was puzzled at the depth of the horror which beleaguered him. He remembered once driving a staid, well-behaved horse in a country lane. The animal ambled forward at a gentle pace, flicking its ears lazily to circ.u.mvent the flies, apparently at ease with its driver and with the world. But suddenly it raised its head, drew the air into its distended nostrils, stopped, quivered in every limb, and then, with a strange cry, bolted like a mad thing. Far away a travelling menagerie was encamping. It had scented the wild animals.

Doctor Levillier felt like that horse. A longing to bolt for his life came upon him. He had an impulse to cry out, to run forward, to escape out of the atmosphere created by this evil nature, this deadly life. He could have crept like a coward into the shadow of one of the areas of Henrietta Street, and sheltered there till the thing went past. And, just because he had this almost overmastering desire to flee, he stood still, paused abruptly, and, without turning his head, listened. At a distance, and he judged, round the corner of the street he heard the sound of a quickening footstep advancing in his direction. He waited, under the obligation of exerting all his powers of self-control; for his limbs trembled to movement, his heart beat to the march, and every separate vein, every separate hair of his body, seemed crying out piercingly to begone. The footstep approached. Doctor Levillier heard it turning the corner.

"Now," thought he, "this person will see me waiting here. Will he come on? Will he pa.s.s me? And if he does, shall I be able to await, to endure the incident?"

And he listened, as a scout might listen in the night for sounds of the hidden enemy. Upon turning the corner, the footsteps advanced a pace or two, faltered, slackened, stopped. For an instant there was silence.

The doctor knew that the man had been struck by his attentive figure, and was pausing to regard it, to consider it. What would be the result of the inspection? In a moment the doctor knew. The footsteps sounded again, this time in retreat.

On this the impulse of the doctor to flee changed, giving way to a strict desire and determination. He was resolved to interview this night-wanderer, to see his face. A greedy anxiety for view, for question, of this person came upon him. He, too, wheeled round, and followed hastily in pursuit. The man had already escaped from his sight into Vere Street, and the doctor broke into a soft run until he reached the corner, skirting which, the man was immediately in his view, but at a considerable distance from him. As the doctor sprang upon the pavement the man turned round, and, evidently observing that he was pursued, quickened his steps impulsively. The doctor was now absolutely determined to address him, and began openly to run. And he was not far from coming up with the fellow when he suddenly whistled a pa.s.sing hansom, bounded in, and thrust up the trapdoor in the roof. The direction given was sufficiently obvious, for the cabby glanced round at the doctor, lifted his whip, brought it down with a sweep over the horse"s loins, and the cab disappeared down Oxford Street at a rocking gallop.

The doctor paused. He was breathing hard, and the perspiration stood upon his face. His disappointment was absurdly keen, and for an instant he had even some idea of hailing another cab, and of following in pursuit. But, upon reflection, he deemed it more reasonable to return upon his steps, and to seek his bed in Harley Street. This accordingly he did, wondering what had moved him so strangely, and wondering, also, not a little, at the abrupt flight of the unknown person. In the brief and distant view of him, which was all that the doctor had obtained, he judged him to be tall, spare, and pale of countenance, with the figure of a gentleman.

The aspect of his face had not been revealed before the shelter of the cab concealed him.

CHAPTER VIII

PAUSE

It chanced that for three or four days after the night of the theatre expedition Valentine and Julian did not meet. They were rarely apart for so long a period, and each was moved to wonder at this unwonted abstinence of their friendship. What was the cause of it? Each found it in a curious hesitation that enveloped him, and impelled him to avoidance of the other. Valentine went about as usual. He looked in at White"s, dined out, rode in the park, visited two theatres, lived the habitual London life which contents so many and disgusts not a few. But he did not ask Julian to share any of these well-worn doings, and at first he did not acknowledge to himself why he did not do so. He sought, more definitely than ever before, to gain amus.e.m.e.nt from amus.e.m.e.nts, and this definite intention, of course, frustrated his purpose. His power of pleasure was, in fact, clogged by an abiding sense of dissatisfaction and depression. And it was really his eventual knowledge of this depression"s cause that led him to bar Julian out from these few days of his life. All that he did bored him, and the more decidedly because he came to know that there was something which did not bore, which even excited him, something which he had resolved to give up. He was, in fact, strangely pursued by an unreasonable desire to fly in the face of Doctor Levillier"s advice, and of his own secondary antagonistic desire, and to sit again with Julian. Everything in which he sought to find distraction, lacked savour. As he sat watching a ballet that glittered with electricity, and was one twinkle of coloured movement, he found himself longing for the silence, the gloom, the live expectation of the tentroom, night, and Julian. At White"s the conversation of the men struck him as even more sc.r.a.ppy, more desultorily scandalous, than usual.

His morning ride was an active _ennui_, an _ennui_ revolving, like a horse in a circus, round and round the weariness of the park.

Yet he had made up his mind quite fully that it would be better not to sit any more. It was not merely Doctor Levillier"s urgency that had impressed him thus. A personal conviction had gradually forced itself upon him that if anything resulted from such apparently imbecile proceedings it would certainly not be of an agreeable nature. But, too, this very sense that a secret danger might be lurking against him and Julian, if only they would consent together to give it power by the united action of sitting, spurred him on to restless desire. It is not only the soldier who has a bizarre love of peril. Many of those who sit at home in apparent calmness of safety seek perils with a maniacal persistence, perils to the intricate scheme of bodily health, perils to the mind. More human mules than the men of the banner and the sword delight in journeying at the extreme edge of the precipice. And Valentine now had to the full this secret hankering after danger. As he knew it, he despised himself for it, for this att.i.tude of the schoolboy in which he held himself. Until now he had believed that he was free from such a preposterous and morbid bondage, free on account of his const.i.tutional indifference towards vice, his innate love of the brooding calms of refinement and of the upper snowfields of the intellect. The discovery of his mistake irritated him, but the irritation could not conquer its cause, and each day the longing to sit once more grew upon him until it became almost painful. It was this longing which occasioned Valentine"s avoidance of Julian. He knew that if they were together he would yield to this foolish, witless temptation, and at any rate try to persuade Julian into an act which might be attended with misfortune, if not with disaster. And then Valentine"s profound respect for Doctor Levillier, a respect which the doctor inspired without effort in every one who knew him, was a chain almost of steel to hold the young man back from gratification of his longing. Valentine never sought any one"s advice except the little doctor"s, and he had a strong feeling of the obligation laid upon him by such sought advice. To ask it and to reject it was a short course to insult.

He resolved to avoid Julian until this gripping desire was shaken from the shoulders of his mind.

Once or twice he tacitly wondered whether Julian was also the prey of this desire, but then he felt certain that his friend could not be so afflicted. Had he been, Julian would surely have found a swift occasion to call. But he did not call. His feet did not turn their accustomed way to Victoria Street. And it did not occur to Valentine that Julian might be immersed in the same sort of struggle as himself. He thought he knew Julian well enough to be sure that he would not have joined issue with such an enemy without instant consultation. A council of war would certainly have been convened.

So Valentine believed himself lonely in his feeling. One night he returned from the theatre and a succeeding supper party at half-past twelve, let himself into the flat with a latchkey, threw off his coat and stood before the fire. His usually smooth, white forehead was puckered in a frown. He contemplated the inevitable hours of bed with dissatisfaction. When a man has allowed a vice to obtain dominion over him there are moments when an enforced abstinence from it, even of only a few hours, seems intolerably irksome. So Valentine felt now.

It seemed to him that he must sit again; that he could not go to bed, could not rest and sleep, until he gratified his desire. Yet what was he to do? He thought at first of starting out, late as the hour was, to Julian"s rooms. But that would be ridiculous, more especially after their mutual resolution. Julian might refuse, would probably, in any event, wish to refuse, the request which he came to make. Valentine strove sincerely to dismiss the desire from his mind, but his effort was entirely vain. Presently he went into his bedroom with the intention of forcing himself to go, as usual, to bed. He began to undress slowly, and had taken off his coat and waistcoat when he felt that he must resume them; that he must remain, unnecessarily, up. He allowed the mental prompting to govern him, and hardly had he once more fully attired himself when the electric bell in the pa.s.sage rang twice. Valentine went to the door, opened it, and descended the flight of stone steps to the main door of the house, which was locked at night. Julian was standing outside on the pavement.

"You are still up, then," he exclaimed. "That"s good. May I come in?"

"Yes, of course. Where have you been to-night?"

They were going up, their footsteps echoing hoa.r.s.ely in the dim light.

"Nowhere."

"Then what made you turn out so late?"

"Oh," Julian said, with an elaborate carelessness; "I don"t know. I thought we were becoming strangers, I suppose. And suddenly I resolved to look you up."

"I see," Valentine said, wondering why Julian was lying.

By this time they were in the flat and had shut the door behind them.

"Why haven"t you been near me?" Julian said.

"Why haven"t you been near me?"

"Oh--well--do you want to know really?"

"Yes; if you have got a definite reason."

"To tell the truth, I have; but it is such an absurd one."

Julian looked at Valentine and then added, with a decidedly forced laugh:

"You"ll be awfully surprised when I tell you what it is, Val. I want to sit again."

"Now I know why I stopped undressing just now," said Valentine. "I must have had a sense that you were coming. Were you thinking very hard of me to-night and of our sittings?"

"Rather! It is the oddest thing, but even since we had that talk with the doctor and agreed to give the whole thing up, I"ve been perfectly miserable. I haven"t enjoyed a single thing I"ve done since that night."

"Nor I," said Valentine.

"What! you have been as bad? And without having Marr continually at your elbow!"

"Marr again!"

"Again! Yes, I should think so. That chap has taken a fancy to me, I suppose. Anyhow, directly I walk into the club, morning, noon, or night, up he comes. He must live there. And the first thing he says is, "Have you gone on with your sittings? You should, you should." To-day he changed his formula and said, "You must," and when I was going away, he looked at me in a d.a.m.ned odd way and remarked in his low, toneless voice, "You will." I declare I almost think he must have a sort of influence over me, for I couldn"t go to bed for the life of me, and here I am. By the way, Marr seems to have a sort of power of divination.