re no angels in the
room, he sat down at a small vacant marble table.

Angels, when driven by hunger, eat as do the animals of this earth, and
their food, transformed by digestive heat, becomes one with their
celestial substance. Seeing three angels under the oaks of Mamre,
Abraham offered them cakes, kneaded by Sarah, an whole calf, butter and
milk, and they ate. Lot, on receiving two angels in his house, ordered
unleavened bread to be baked, and they did eat. Arcade was given a tough
beef-steak by a seedy waiter, and he did eat. Nevertheless, his dreams
were of the sweet leisure, of the repose, of the delightful studies he
had quitted, of the heavy task he had undertaken, of the toil, the
weariness, the perils which he would have to endure, and his soul was
sad and his heart troubled.

As he was finishing his modest repast, a young man of poor appearance
and thinly clad entered the room, and rapidly surveying the tables
approached the angel and greeted him by the name of Abdiel, because he
himself was a celestial spirit.

"I knew you would answer my call, Mirar," replied Arcade, addressing his
angelic brother in his turn by the name he formerly bore in heaven. But
Mirar was remembered no more in heaven since he, an Archangel, had left
the service of God. He was called Theophile Belais on earth, and to earn
his bread gave music lessons to small children in the day-time and at
night played the violin in dancing saloons.

"It is you, dear Abdiel?" replied Theophile. "So here we are reunited in
this sad world. I am pleased to see you again. All the same I pity you,
for we lead a hard life here."

But Arcade answered:

"Friend, your exile draws to an end. I have great plans. I will confide
them to you and associate you with them."

And Maurice's guardian angel, having ordered two coffees, revealed his
ideas and his projects to his companion: he told how, during his visit
on earth, he had abandoned himself to researches little practised by
celestial spirits and had studied theologies, cosmogonies, the system of
the Universe, theories of matter, modern essays on the transformation
and loss of energy. Having, he explained, studied Nature, he had found
her in perpetual conflict with the teachings of the Master he served.
This Master, greedy of praise, whom he had for a long time adored,
appeared to him now as an ignorant, stupid, and cruel tyrant. He had
denied Him, blasphemed Him, and was burning to combat Him. His pl