Paul roared as loud as any. He was as sober as a judge so far as
balance of body and clearness of speech and thought were concerned, but
the wine was in his blood. He stamped, clapped hands, and shouted until
the performer left the stage, and had twice returned and bowed He felt
that the applause would not cease until he ceased to lead it.

'That's better, eh?' said the man at Paul's side when the tumult was
over.

'Yes, by Jingo!' said Paul 'It _was_ better. Look here, I'm afraid I was
rather rude to you a little while ago. Come and have a drink with me.'

'With all the pleasure in life,' the stranger answered.

They rose and pushed their way to the bar together. The stranger would
like a brandy-and-soda. Paul would take a brandy-and-soda. They talked,
and Paul thought his chance-found companion a remarkably agreeable
fellow. He seemed to have been everywhere. He spoke familiarly of many
European countries and of the United States. But somehow he faded away
in a sort of mist, and Paul's last remembrance of him was that he was
laughingly pulling at his arm and advising him to go home. He seemed to
be blotted out suddenly in that very act.

The Exile flashed back from his memories to himself, and awoke with a
faint, gasping cry, for his mind had led him to the hour of the lost
innocence. There are thousands on thousands of men who have lived purer
lives than he who would yet deride the shaft which struck him, and laugh
to think of its poignant power to wound. For the pure soul in the frail
body, for the high hope and the will of burned cord, for the passion
which hurries the senses and has no power to blind the conscience, there
is a lasting purgatory open. How many a time since that hour of loss he
had groaned in the silence of the night to think of it, and had taken
his pillow in his teeth! To live the purer for the shame which bit so
deep and keen? Ah, no; to overlay it with new shames, to groan over in
new vigils.

Easy for the callous good, who know neither sin nor virtue in extremes,
who live somewhere about the level of a passable rectitude, and neither
sink nor soar far from it--easy for them to dismiss this bitter truth
for a mere sentimentalism; but there _is_ a virginity of the soul which
evil custom cannot deflower. Woe to him who knows it, the chaste in wish
and the unchaste in act, the rogue who values honour, the poltroon who
would fain be brave! Ah, the goat-hoofed Satyr dancing there, drunk and
le