"What act of brigandage, Valentine?" Julian asked.
"Oh, the attempt—my attempt to seize upon a different soul."
"But you failed."
"Did I? Do you think so, doctor?"
His apparent audacity seemed to increase. In the twilight of the scented room he drew himself up as he stood by the brocaded screen that hid the fire. He closed and unclosed rapidly his left hand which hung at his side. His foot tapped the thick carpet gently.
"Did you not?" the doctor answered quietly.
But Julian was roused to vivacity.
"What do you mean, Valentine?" he said. "Of course you may have changed, or developed, or whatever you like to call it, since then. But to say you have got a different soul!"
"Is absurd? Yes, you are right. Because if I had got a different soul the original 'I,' that was dissatisfied with itself, must have ceased to be. Since the soul of a man—his will to do things, his will to feel things—is the man himself, if I had a different soul I should be another man. The former man would have ceased to be."
"Or would be elsewhere."