"You have the temptation, Julian?" he said.
"You know I have--horribly."
"But you fight it and conquer it?"
"I fight it, and now I am beginning to conquer it, to get it under."
"Now? Since when?"
Julian replied by asking another question.
"Look here, how long have we known each other?"
"Let me see. I'm twenty-four, you twenty-three. Just five years."
"Ah! For just five years I've fought, Val, been able to fight."
"And before then?"
"I didn't fight; I revelled in the enemy's camp."
"You have never told me this before. Did you suddenly get conversion, as
Salvationists say?"
"Something like it. But my conversion had nothing to do with trumpets and
tambourines."
"What then? This is interesting."
A certain confusion had come into Julian's expression, even a certain
echoing awkwardness into his attitude. He looked away into the fire and
lighted another cigarette before he answered. Then he said rather
unevenly:
"I dare say you'll be surprised when I tell you. But I never meant to
tell you at all."
"Don't, if you would rather not."
"Yes, I think I will. I must stop you from disliking yourself at any
cost, dear old boy. Well, you converted me, so far as I am converted;
and that's not very far, I'm afraid.
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