“It was to tell you that I asked you here to-night.”

They had finished dinner, and rose from the table.  Passing through the hall of the club, they went into a huge high room, papered with books.  Valentine led the way to a secluded corner, and gave the doctor a cigar.  When he had lit it and settled himself comfortably, his rather small feet, in their marvellously polished boots, lightly crossed, his head reposing serenely on the back of his chair, Valentine continued, answering his attentive silence.

“It has led to what I suppose you would call an absurdity.  But first, the change itself.  A sort of dissatisfaction has been creeping over me, perhaps for a long while, I being unconscious of it.  At length I became conscious.  I found that I was weary of being so free from the impulse to sin—­to sin, I mean, in definite, active ways, as young men sin.  It seemed to me that I was missing a great deal, missing the delight sin is said to give to natures, or at least missing the invigorating necessity you have just mentioned, the necessity to fight, to wage war against impulses.”

“I understand.”

“And one night I expressed this feeling to Julian.”

“To Addison?” the doctor said, an expression of keen interest sliding into his face.  “I should much like to know how he received it.”

“He said, of course, that such a dissatisfaction was rather monstrous.”

“Was that all?”

“No.  He told me he considered temptation rather a curse than otherwise, and then he surprised me very much.”

“He told you a secret?”

“Why, yes.”

“The secret of your great influence over his life?”

“You knew of this secret, then?”

“He didn’t tell it to me.  Long ago I divined it.  Addison is a very interesting fellow to a doctor, and the fact of his strong friendship with you has made him more interesting even than he would otherwise have been.  His physique is tremendous.  He has a quite unusual vitality, and stronger passions by far than most Englishmen.  I confess that my knowledge of human nature led me to foresee a very troubled and too vehement future for him.  My anticipation being utterly falsified led me naturally to look round for the reason of its falsification.  I very soon found that reason in you.”

“I had never suspected it.”

“Your lack of suspicion was not the least reason of the influence you exercised.”

“Possibly.  He told me of the strength of his evil impulses, of how he hated their assaults, and of how being with me enabled him to conquer them.  Apparently the contemplation of my unnatural nature is an armour to him.”

“It is.”

“Well, I continued to bewail my condition, which he envied, and it ended in our sitting down, in jest, to make an experiment to try to exchange our souls.”

“What means did you take?”

And then Valentine told Dr. Levillier the exact circumstances of the three sittings, without embellishment, without omission of any kind.  He listened with keen attention, and without attempting interruption or intruding comment.  When Valentine had finished he made no remark.