thing."

"Yes," Valentine answered, thoughtfully. "I believe you are right. But,
if you are right, I have missed a great deal."

"How do you deduce that?"

"In this way. I have never had to be obedient. I have never had to
struggle."

"Surely the latter," the little doctor said, fixing his clear, kind
eyes on Valentine's face. "I don't think, in all my experience, that
I have ever met a man who lived a fine, pure life without fixing the
bayonet and using the sword at moments. There must be an occasional
_mêlée_."

"Indeed not; that is to say," Valentine rather hastily added, "as regards
the pure life. For I cannot lay claim to anything fine. But I assure you
that my life has been pure without a struggle."

"Without one? Think!"

"Without one. Perhaps that is what wearies me at moments, doctor, the
completeness of my coldness. Perhaps it is this lack of necessity to
struggle that has at last begun to render me dissatisfied."

"I thought you were free from that evil humour of dissatisfaction,
that evil humour which crowds my consulting-rooms and wastes away the
very tissues of the body."