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 amusement from amusements, 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 scrappy, 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 attitude 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 constitutional 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 passage 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 hoarsely 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 damned 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. Last night, when I happened to see him, he began talking about doctors, and, by Jove, didn't he abuse them! He says they stand more in the way of the development of the spiritual forces in man than any other body of people. He denounced them all as low materialists, immersed in the tinkering of the flesh. 'What does the flesh matter?' he said. 'It is nothing. It is only an envelope. And the more tightly it is fastened together, the more it stifles the spirit. I would like to catch hold of some men's bodies and tear them in pieces to get at their souls.' Val, as he made that cheerful remark, he looked more like a homicidal maniac than anything I ever saw."
"I suppose you didn't stand up for the doctors?"
"But I did—for our little man. D'you think I wasn't going to say a word for him?"
"What! you mentioned his name to this chap?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"I don't know," Valentine said, hesitatingly.
"What objection could there possibly be?"
"None, of course—none. I simply had a quite unreasonable feeling that I wished you hadn't. That is all."
And then Valentine relapsed into silence, the silence some men keep when they are needlessly, uselessly irritated. The mention of Marr's name had effected him oddly. He now felt a perverse desire not to sit, not comply with the rather impertinent prediction of this dark-featured prophet whom he had never seen. To carry out this prediction would seem like an obedience to a stranger, governing, unseen, and at a distance. Why did this man concern himself in the affairs of those over whom he had no sovereignty, with whom he had no friendship?
"Julian," Valentine said at last, abruptly, "I wish you would promise me something."
"What is it?"
"To drop this fellow, Marr. He has nothing to do with us, and it is a decided impertinence, this curiosity he shows in our doings. Don't answer any more of his questions. Tell him to keep his advice to himself. And if you really believe he is obtaining an influence over you, avoid him."
"You talk as if you disliked him."
"I feel as if I hated him."
"A man you have never even seen?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't take to him, and I have seen him. I will drop him as much as I can. I promise you that."
"Thank you, old boy."
Julian fidgetted about rather uneasily, touching the ornaments on the mantelpiece, opening and shutting his silver cigarette-case with a click. It was obvious that he felt restless and dissatisfied. Then he said:
"Well, are we going to—"
"Surely you don't mean to say that you came here to-night to persuade me into doing again what we both decided not to do any more?" asked Valentine.
"I came to try," Julian replied with decision.
He looked at Valentine and then added:
"And do you know I have been thinking, especially to-day, that you were of the same mind as I."
"How?"
"That you wanted to sit again as much as I did."
"But I don't know Marr," Valentine said, with unusual sarcasm.
Julian flushed red, like a man who has been stung.
"Perhaps he influences you through me, though," he said with a laugh.
"What nonsense, Julian! If I thought he had anything to do with the matter, I would never sit again. But he can have nothing to do with it."
"Of course not. So will you sit? You want to give in. I know that."
"I do"
"I was sure of it."
"At the same time, remember the doctor's advice."
"Oh, doctors are always against that sort of thing."
"Julian, I have a strong feeling that, should we ever get any manifestation at all, it will be inimical, even deadly, to one or both of us. Each time we have sat a sensation of distress has taken hold of me, and each time with greater force."
"Nerves!"
"Well, then, the hand which you say you held was nerves?"
"Perhaps. But that is just it. I must know, or at least try to know. It is inevitable. We can't stop now, Val, whether we are standing on the threshold of good, or evil, or—nothing at all. We have got to go on. Besides, you and I have not effected an exchange."
"Of souls? No. Perhaps it is an imbecile proceeding to try."
"No matter."
"Or a dangerous proceeding."
"You are temporizing, and the night is running away as hard as it can.
Come, now, will you do what I want—yes or no?"
After a long hesitation, Valentine slowly answered:
"Yes."
And absurdly, as he said it, he felt like a man who tosses the dice for life or death.