hedged him from sin, the armour that protected him against the assaults of self. He had never told Valentine this secret, which he cherished with the exceeding and watchful care men so often display in hiding that which does them credit. For who is not a pocket Byron nowadays? But to-night was fated by the Immortals to be a night of self-revelation. And Valentine led the way by taking a step that surprised Julian not a little. For as Valentine frowned he said: "Yes, I begin to hate my nickname, and I begin to hate myself." Julian could not help smiling at the absurdity of this bemoaning. "What is it in yourself that you hate so much?" he asked, with a decided curiosity. Valentine sat considering. "Well," he replied at length, "I think it is my inhumanity, which robs me of many things. I don't desire the pleasures that most men desire, as you know. But lately I have often wished to desire them." "Rather an elaborate state of mind." "Yet a state easy to understand, surely. Julian, emotions pass me by. Why is that? Deep love, deep hate, despair, desire, won't stop to speak to me. Men tell me I am a marvel because I never do as they do. But I am not driven as they are evidently driven. The fact of the matter is that desire is not in me. My nature shrinks from sin; but it is not virtue that shrinks: it is rather reserve. I have no more temptation to be sensual, for instance, than I have to be vulgar." "Hang it, Val, you don't want to have the temptation, do you?" Valentine looked at Julian curiously. "You have the temptation, Julian?" he said. "You know I have--horribly." "But you fight it and conquer it?" "I fight it, and now I am beginning to conquer it, to get it under." "Now? Since when?" Julian replied by asking another question. "Look here, how long have we known each other?" "Let me see. I'm twenty-four, you twenty-three. Just five years." "Ah! For just five years I've fought, Val, been able to fight." "And before then?" "I didn't fight; I revelled in the enemy's camp." "You have never told me this before. Did you suddenly get conversion, as Salvationists say?" "Something like it. But my conversion had nothing to do with trumpets and tambourines." "What then? This is interesting." A certain confusion had come into Julian's expression, even a certain echoing awkwardness into his attitude. He looked away into the fire and lighted another cigarette before he answered. Then he said rather unevenly: "I dare say you'll be surprised when I tell you. But I never meant to tell you at all." "Don't, if you would rather not." "Yes, I think I will. I must stop you from disliking yourself at any cost, dear old boy. Well, you converted me, so far as I am converted; and that's not very far, I'm afraid." "I?" said Valentine, with genuine surprise. "Why, I never tried to." "Exactly. If you had, no doubt you'd have failed." "But explain."