Part 2 (1/2)
”Surely!”
”Then half the battle's won--according to Marr.”
”You are joking.”
”He wasn't. He would declare that, with time and perseverance, we could accomplish an exchange of souls.”
Valentine laughed.
”Well, but how?”
Julian laughed too.
”Oh, it seems absurd--but he'd tell us to sit together.”
”Well, we are sitting together now.”
”No; at a table, I mean.”
”Table-turning!” Valentine cried, with a sort of contempt. ”That is for children, and for all of us at Christmas, when we want to make fools of ourselves.”
”Just what I am inclined to think. But Marr--and he's really a very smart, clever chap, Val--denies it. He swears it is possible for two people who sit together often to get up a marvellous sympathy, which lasts on even when they are no longer sitting. He says you can even see your companion's thoughts take form in the darkness before your eyes, and pa.s.s in procession like living things.”
”He must be mad.”
”Perhaps. I don't know. If he is, he can put his madness to you very lucidly, very ingeniously.”
Valentine stroked the white back of Rip meditatively with his foot.
”You have never sat, have you?” he asked.
”Never.”
”Nor I. I have always thought it an idiotic and very dull way of wasting one's time. Now, what on earth can a table have to do with one's soul?”
”I don't know. What is one's soul?”
”One's essence, I suppose; the inner light that spreads its rays outward in actions, and that is extinguished, or expelled, at the hour of death.”
”Expelled, I think.”
”I think so too. That which is so full of strange power cannot surely die so soon. Even my soul, so frigid, so pa.s.sionless, has, you say, held you back from sins like a leash of steel, And I did not even try to forge the steel. If we could exchange souls, would yours hold me back in the same way?”
”No doubt.”
”I wonder,” Valentine said thoughtfully. After a moment he added, ”shall we make this absurd experiment of sitting, just for a phantasy?”
”Why not? It would be rather fun.”
”It might be. We will just do it once to see whether you can get some of my feelings, and I some of yours.”