Flames

Refinement governs Valentine Cresswell's life so thoroughly that he begins to question his own contentment. Wealthy, sociable and devoted to intellectual pleasures, he is known as the Saint of Victoria Street. His friend Julian Addison has a very different temperament and wishes he could take on Valentine's nature. Their conversation in a room hung with green draperies turns friendship into a discussion of character, dissatisfaction and the possibility of change.

Robert Hichens gives these abstract concerns a personal urgency. In a later encounter, Cuckoo warns Julian that he is changing and challenges his confidence that a person shapes himself. Julian sees a strange flame in her eyes and reacts with anger, fear and awe. The novel combines close attention to rooms and gestures with arguments about goodness and influence. Readers interested in fiction about identity can follow how those questions emerge through affection, resentment and uneasy exchanges between friends.