as a lover sets up house with his mistress, takes an attic near the stars, or builds a mansion that amazes the street-urchins.  And they dwell together.  And youth strives in every way to know his mistress.  He tests her, tries her, kisses and cuffs her, gives her presents, weeps at her knees.  And at first she is magical, and a wonder, and a dream, and eternity.  And then, perhaps, she is a faded creature, and terrible as a lost girl whom one has known in innocence.  She is grim and arid.  She fills youth with a great horror and with a great fear.  He dare not kiss her any more.  And then, perhaps, at last he prays, “Deliver me from this bondage!” And he thinks that he knows his mistress.  But, happy or sad, does he ever quite know her?  Is she not always a mystery, this life, a sphinx who jealously guards a great secret?

His evening with the two boys, for so the doctor called them in his thoughts, had set him musing thus definitely.  Was there not a wonder and a secret in their dual life of friendship?  For is not the potent influence of one soul over another one of the marvels of time?  The doctor loved Valentine as a human saint loves another saint.  But he loved Julian as a saint loves a sinner.  Not that he named Julian sinner, but it was impossible to be with him, observantly, sensitively, and not to feel the thrill of his warm, passionate humanity, which cried aloud for governance, for protection.  Julian could be great, with the greatness only attained by purged humanity, superior surely to the peaceful purity of angels.  But he could be a castaway, oh! as much a castaway as the fainting shipwrecked man whom the hoarse surf rolls to the sad island of a desert sea.

Without Valentine what might he not have been?  And the little doctor let his imagination run loose until his light eyes were dim with absurd tears.  He winked them away as he turned into Regent Street.  The hour was nearly two, and the great curved thoroughfare was rather deserted.  Those few persons who were about had a curious aspect of wolves.  Their eyes were watchful; their gait denoted a ghastly readiness for pause, for colloquy.  Poor creatures!  What was their liaison with life?  A thing like a cry for help in the dark.  The doctor longed to be a miracle-worker, to lift up his hands, just there where he was by the New Gallery, and to say, “Be ye healed!” He had a true love for every human thing.  And that love sometimes seared his heart, despite his fervent faith and hope.

But now, as he pursued his way, a physical sensation intruded itself upon his mind, and gradually excluded all his reflections.  A sense of bodily uneasiness came upon him, of a curious irritation and contempt, mingled with fear.  He at first ascribed it to the coffee he had imprudently drunk at Valentine’s flat, and to the strength of the two cigars he had smoked, or to some ordinary, trifling cause of diet.  But by the time he crossed Oxford Street, and was in the desert of Vere Street, he felt that there was a reason for his distress, outside of him.