through the touch of the fingers, called to the soul of music that slept in the piano, stirred it from sleep, carried it through strange and flashing scenes, taught it to strive and to agonize, then hushed it again to sleep and peace.  And as Julian looked from the picture to the player, who seemed drawing inspiration from it, he often mutely compared the imagined beauty of the soul of the Christ with the known beauty of the soul of his friend.  And the two lovelinesses seemed to meet, and to mingle as easily as two streams one with the other.  Yet the beauty of the Christ soul sprang from a strange parentage, was a sublime inheritance, had been tried in the fiercest fires of pity and of pain.  The beauty of Valentine’s soul seemed curiously innate, and mingled with a dazzling snow of almost inhuman purity.  His was not a great soul that had striven successfully, and must always strive.  His was a soul that easily triumphed, that was almost coldly perfect without effort, that had surely never longed even for a moment to fall, had never desired and refused the shadowy pleasures of passion.  The wonderful purity of his friend’s face continually struck Julian anew.  It suggested to him the ivory peak of an Alp, the luminous pallor of a pearl.  What other young man in London looked like that?  Valentine was indeed an unique figure in the modern London world.  Had he strayed into it from the fragrant pages of a missal, or condescended to it from the beatific vistas of some far-off Paradise?  Julian had often wondered, as he looked into the clear, calm eyes of the friend who had been for so long the vigilant, yet unconscious guardian of his soul.

To-night, as Valentine sat looking at the Christ, a curious wonder at himself came into his mind.  He was musing on the confession of Julian, so long withheld, so shyly made at last.  This confession caused him, for the first time, to look self-consciously upon himself, to stand away from his nature, as the artist stands away from the picture he is painting, and to examine it with a sideways head, with a peering, contracted gaze.  This thing that protected a soul from sin—­what was it like?  What was it?  He could not easily surmise.  He had a clear vision of the Christ soul, of the exquisite essence of a divine individuality that prompted life to spring out of death for one perfect moment that it might miraculously reward a great human act of humanity.  Yes, that soul floated before him almost visibly.  He could call it up before his mind as a man can call up the vision of a supremely beautiful rose he has admired.  And there was a scent from the Christ soul as ineffably delicious as the scent of the rose.  But when Valentine tried to see his own soul, he could not see it.  He could not comprehend how its aspect affected others, even quite how it affected Julian.  Only he could comprehend, as he looked at the Christ, its imperfection, and a longing, not felt before, came to him to be better than he was.  This new aspiration was given to