“You mean it, Val?”

“Certainly.”

“You will be seen at the ‘Empire’ with her?”

“Well—­would not you?”

“But you are so different.”

“Julian, you remember that night when we leaned out over London, when we saw what are called common people having common experiences?  I said then that they, at any rate, were living.”

“Yes.”

“You and I will try to live with them.”

“But, Valentine—­you—­”

“Even I may learn to feel the strength of the spring if I order my life rather differently in the future.  We three, you, I, the girl, will go one night to the Garden of Eden, where the birds wear tights and sing comic songs in French, and the scent that comes from the flowers is patchouli, and silk rustles instead of the leaves of the trees.  We will go there on boat-race night.  Ah, the strength of the spring!  On boat-race night it beats with hammering pulses among the groves of the Garden of Eden.”

Julian was surprised at this outburst, which sounded oddly deliberate, and was apparently spoken without real impulse.  He was surprised, but, on consideration, he came to the conclusion that Valentine, having silently debated the question of his own life, had resolved to make a definite effort to see if he could change the course of it.  Julian felt that such an effort must be useless.  He knew Valentine so intimately, he thought,—­knew the very groundwork of his nature,—­that that nature was too strong to be carved into a different, and possibly grotesque, form.

“Are you an experimentalist, Val?” he asked.

Valentine threw a rapid glance on him.

“I?  I don’t understand.  Why should I experiment upon you?”

“No; not on me, but on yourself.”

“Oh, I see what you mean.  No, Julian; I prefer to let fate experiment upon me.”

“At the ’Empire’?”

“If fate chooses.”

“I think you ought to know Cuckoo—­”

“Is that her name?”

“Yes, Cuckoo Bright, before our meditated expedition.”

Valentine seemed struck by this idea.

“So that we may all be at our ease.  A capital notion.  Julian, sit down, write a note asking her to come to tea on Thursday, in the flat.  I will show her my pictures, and you shall talk to her of Huxley and of Herbert Spencer.”

Julian regarded Valentine rather doubtfully.

“Are you malicious?” he said, with a hesitating note in his voice.

“Malicious—­no!”

“You won’t chaff her?”

“Chaff a lady who wears more feathers than ever ‘growed on one ostrich,’ and who was the intime of the mysterious Marr?  Julian, Julian!”

Then, seeing that Julian still looked rather uncomfortable, Valentine added, dropping his mock heroic manner: 

“Don’t be afraid.  We will give the lady one good hour.”

“Ah!” Julian cried, struck by the expression, “that’s what the doctor wished to give to every poor wretch in London.”