"You don't know her at all," he said, hotly.
"I know her class."
Julian looked at him, and his anger died, as his mind sailed off on a new
tack.
"Her class! Then you must have been studying it lately, Val. Not long ago
you could not have studied it. Your nature would not have let you."
"That is true enough."
"Were you studying it when we met you the other night?"
"Yes."
"With what result?" Julian asked with eager curiosity.
"That I understand something I never understood before--the charm of
sin."
Julian was greatly surprised at this deliverance of his friend, who
uttered it in his coldly pure voice, looking serenely high-minded and
even loftily intellectual.
"You find the charm of sin in Piccadilly?"
"I begin to find it everywhere, in every place in which human beings
gather together."
"You no longer feel yourself aloof from the average man, then?"
Valentine pressed his right hand slowly upon Julian's shoulder.
"No longer," he answered quietly. "Julian, you and I are emerging
together from the hermitage in which we have dwelt retired for so long.
I always thought you would emerge some day. I never thought I should. But
so it is. Don't think that I am standing still while you are travelling.
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