"The last novelty has failed? You are a very discontented sinner, Julian.
And yet London begins to think you too enterprising. I hear that Lady
Crichton is the last person to shut her doors against you. What did she
hear of?"
"How should I know?"
He laughed bitterly.
"She oughtn't to be particular. She used to receive Marr. I met him first
in her yellow drawing-room."
"London had not discussed him, perhaps. You are rapidly becoming a legend
and a warning. That is fame. To be the accepted warning for others."
"Or infamy; which is much the same thing."
"But you are only at the first posting-station of your journey,"
Valentine continued, looking at him with a smile. "If you are
dissatisfied, it is because you have not tasted yet half that strength
of the spring we once talked of. You have not completely thrown off
the foolish yoke of public opinion. The chains still jangle about you.
Cast them away and you will yet be happy."
"Shall I? Shall I, Valentine?"
The exhausted, worn, and weary figure leaned abruptly forward in its
chair. Julian's tired eyes glittered greedily.
"To be happy, I'd commit any crime," he said.
"Crime is merely opinion," Valentine answered. "Everything is opinion.
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