tack, keen
unhappiness. Therefore, suspecting the truth, which Bouchotte's
temperament and the angel's character made sufficiently obvious, he
overwhelmed Arcade with sarcasm and abuse, reproaching him with the
immorality of his ways. Arcade answered, tranquilly, that it was
difficult to subject physiological impulses to perfectly defined rules,
and that moralists encountered great difficulties in the case of certain
natural necessities.

"Moreover," added Arcade, "I freely acknowledge that it is almost
impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has
no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human
life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no
distinction between good and evil."

"You see, then," replied Maurice, "that religion is necessary."

"Moral law," replied the angel, "which is supposed to be revealed to us,
is drawn in reality from the grossest empiricism. Custom alone regulates
morals. What Heaven prescribes is merely the consecration of ancient
customs. The divine law, promulgated amid fireworks on some Mount
Sinai, is never anything but the codification of human prejudice. And
from this fact--namely, that morals change--religions which endure for a
long time, such as Judaeo-Christianity, vary their moral law."

"At any rate," said Maurice, whose intelligence was swelling visibly,
"you will grant me that religion prevents much profligacy and crime?"

"Except when it promotes crime--as, for instance, the murder of
Iphigenia."

"Arcade," exclaimed Maurice, "when I hear you argue, I rejoice that I am
not an intellectual."

Meanwhile Theophile, with his head bent over the piano, his face hidden
by the long fair veil of his hair, bringing down from on high his
inspired hands on to the keys, was playing and singing the full score of
_Aline, Queen of Golconda_.

Prince Istar used to come to their friendly reunions, his pockets filled
with bombs and bottles of champagne, both of which he owed to the
liberality of Baron Everdingen. Bouchotte received the Kerub with
pleasure, since she saw in him the witness and the trophy of the victory
she had gained on the little flowered couch. He was to her as the
severed head of Goliath in the hands of the youthful David. And she
admired the prince for his cleverness as an accompanist, his vigour,
which she had subdued, and his prodigious capacity for drink.

One night, when young d'Esparvieu took his angel ho