and
disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own
merits."

"My dear," said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the
card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, "that
saying, 'People sing as they can sing' is a bourgeois maxim. People sing
with a voice, if they have one; but they don't sing after hearing such
a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part,
I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental
little ditties."

"Then it is well worth while," said Flavie, leaving the group, "to spend
so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing."

"So," said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of
Flavie had interrupted, "Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives
among the stars?"

"My dear and former colleague," said Phellion, "I am, as you are,
annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of
his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous bodies
suspended in space by the hand of the Creator presents, in my opinion,
higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager brain, I
think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised me he
would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can assure you I shall
speak my mind."

"Science," said la Peyrade, "is a fine thing, but it has, unfortunately,
the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs."

"Not to mention," said Celeste, "that it destroys all religious
sentiments."

"You are mistaken there, my dear child," said Madame de Godollo.
"Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your point
of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws us from
religion, but a great deal draws us back to it."

"And yet, madame," said Celeste, "every one admits that Monsieur Felix
is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies
nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible
than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more
religious for that."

"I tell you, my dear child, that Monsieur Felix is not irreligious, and
with a little gentleness and patience nothing would be easier than to
bring him back."

"Bring back a savant to the duties of religion!" exclaimed la Peyrade.
"Really, madame, that seems to me very difficult. These gentlemen put
the object of their studies before everything else. Tell a geom