"That is it, Julian, put in the straightforward music-hall way. People are happy because they want things; yes, they do. It is a philosophy of life. That boy has a life because he wants that girl, and she wants him. And you, Julian, you want a thousand things—"
"Not since I have known you," Julian said.
He felt curiously excited and troubled. His arm was still linked in Valentine's. Slowly he withdrew it. Valentine shut down the window and they came back to the fire.
"You know," Valentine said, "that it is possible for two influences to work one upon the other, and for each to convert the other. I begin to think that your nature has triumphed over mine."
"What?" Julian said, in frank amazement. The Philistines could not have been more astounded when Samson pulled down the pillars.
"I have taught you, as you say, to die to the ordinary man's life,
Julian. But what if you have taught me to live to it?"
Julian did not answer for a moment. He was wondering whether Valentine could possibly be serious. But his face was serious, even eager. There was an unwonted stain of red on his smooth, usually pale cheeks. A certain wild boyishness had stolen over him, a reckless devil danced in his blue eyes. Julian caught the infection of his mood.
"And what's my lesson?" Julian said.
His voice sounded thick and harsh. There was a surge of blood through his brain and a prickly heat behind his eyeballs. Suddenly a notion took him that Valentine had never been so magnificent as now,—now when a new fierceness glittered in his expression, and a wild wave of humanity ran through him like a surging tide.
"What's my lesson, Valentine?"