“You were out?”

“Yes.”

“She shows herself very exigent all of a sudden.  She is afraid of losing you.  I told you long ago she cherished absurd ambitions with regard to you.  Do you intend to answer her notes?”

“Oh yes,” Julian said.  “Cuckoo has always been very fond of me; very fond.”

He glanced at the absurdly vulgar little bird in the corner of the letter.  “And that’s something,” he added slowly.

“You are weighed down with gratitude?  No wonder.  Are you grateful to others who have always cared for you in a different way—­unselfishly, that is?”

“I don’t seem to feel very much about anybody now,” Julian said.  “I do such a lot.  The more you do, the less you feel.  Damnable life!  All cruelty.  I can’t feel satisfied.  But there must be something; something I haven’t tried.  I must find it,” he said, almost fiercely, and, stirring in a sudden energy, “I must find it—­or—­curse you, Val, why don’t you find it for me?”

Valentine laughed.

“The last novelty has failed?  You are a very discontented sinner, Julian.  And yet London begins to think you too enterprising.  I hear that Lady Crichton is the last person to shut her doors against you.  What did she hear of?”

“How should I know?”

He laughed bitterly.

“She oughtn’t to be particular.  She used to receive Marr.  I met him first in her yellow drawing-room.”

“London had not discussed him, perhaps.  You are rapidly becoming a legend and a warning.  That is fame.  To be the accepted warning for others.”

“Or infamy; which is much the same thing.”

“But you are only at the first posting-station of your journey,” Valentine continued, looking at him with a smile.  “If you are dissatisfied, it is because you have not tasted yet half that strength of the spring we once talked of.  You have not completely thrown off the foolish yoke of public opinion.  The chains still jangle about you.  Cast them away and you will yet be happy.”

“Shall I?  Shall I, Valentine?”

The exhausted, worn, and weary figure leaned abruptly forward in its chair.  Julian’s tired eyes glittered greedily.

“To be happy, I’d commit any crime,” he said.

“Crime is merely opinion,” Valentine answered.  “Everything is opinion.  You will commit crimes probably.  Most brave men do.”

“But shall I be happy?”

“You are greedy, Julian, greedy of everything, knowledge of life, lust, joy.  You are never satisfied.  That’s because you and I fasted for so long; and the greedy man is never quite happy while he is eating, for he is always anticipating the next course.  And, let philosophers say what they will, happiness does not lie in anticipation.  Go on eating.  Pass on from course to course.  At last there will come a time, a beautiful time, when your appetite will be satisfied and you will rest contented.  But, remember, not till you have journeyed through