For who is not a pocket Byron nowadays?
But to-night was fated by the Immortals to be a night of self-revelation.
And Valentine led the way by taking a step that surprised Julian not a
little. For as Valentine frowned he said:
"Yes, I begin to hate my nickname, and I begin to hate myself."
Julian could not help smiling at the absurdity of this bemoaning.
"What is it in yourself that you hate so much?" he asked, with a decided
curiosity.
Valentine sat considering.
"Well," he replied at length, "I think it is my inhumanity, which robs me
of many things. I don't desire the pleasures that most men desire, as you
know. But lately I have often wished to desire them."
"Rather an elaborate state of mind."
"Yet a state easy to understand, surely. Julian, emotions pass me by. Why
is that? Deep love, deep hate, despair, desire, won't stop to speak to
me. Men tell me I am a marvel because I never do as they do. But I am not
driven as they are evidently driven. The fact of the matter is that
desire is not in me. My nature shrinks from sin; but it is not virtue
that shrinks: it is rather reserve. I have no more temptation to be
sensual, for instance, than I have to be vulgar."
"Hang it, Val, you don't want to have the temptation, do you?"
Valentine looked at Julian curiously.
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