politely insinuated into his glass, the silence took to itself wings
and lightly departed. They talked of the play, and it appeared that
they were all impressed by it, but in slightly different ways, and for
different reasons. Valentine, who was intensely, but sometimes almost
coldly, artistic, appreciated it, he said, because it did not obviously
endeavour to work out a problem or to teach a lesson. It simply, with
a great deal of literary finish and dramatic force, stated a curiously
human character, showed the nature of a man at work, and left him,
after some scenes of his life, still at work upon his own salvation or
destruction, not telling the audience what his end would be, scarcely
even trying to imply his innate tendency one way or the other. This
satisfied Valentine. This had made him feel as if he had seen a block
cut out of life.

"I do not want to learn what becomes of that man," he said. "I have
known him, good and bad. That is enough. That satisfies me more than
the sight of a thousand bombastic heroes, a thousand equally bombastic
villains. Life is neither ebony nor ivory. That man is something to my
mind forever, as Ibsen's 'Master Builder' is something. I can never
forget the one or the other."

"Your life is ivory, Val," Julian said.

He had liked the play because the violent struggle between good and evil
woke up many responsive memories in his mind. The hero of the play had
been shown feeling precisely as Julian had often felt. That was enough.
He did not very much care for the brilliant artifice, which Valentine had
remarked with so much pleasure. He did not specially note the peculiar
effect of nature produced by the simplicity and thoughtful directness
of the dialogue. He only knew that he had seen somebody whose nature