to but one goddess, and she is chastening.
That is Folly! She is a liberal creditor. How bravely she lends us
our excesses! When we are young, Folly is a boon companion. She opens
her purse to us, laughing. But let her find that we have overdrawn our
account with nature, then does Folly throw aside her smiling mask,
become terrible with her importunities, and hound us into the grave. I
am paying Folly, Monsieur," exhibiting a palsied hand. "I am paying in
precious hours for the dross she lent me in my youth."

Chaumonot could not contain his indignation against this fallacious
reasoning. He knew that his words might lose him a thousand livres;
nevertheless he said bravely: "Monsieur le Marquis, it is such men as
yourself who make the age what it is; it is philosophy such as yours
that corrupts and degenerates. It is wrong, I say, a thousand times
wrong. Being without faith, you are without a place to stand on; you
are without hope; you live in darkness, and everything before you must
be hollow, empty, joyless. You think, yet deny the existence of a
soul! Folly has indeed been your god. Oh, Monsieur, it is frightful!"
And the zealot rose and crossed himself, expecting a fiery outburst and
instant dismissal. He could not repress a sigh. A thousand livres
were a great many.

But the marquis acted quite contrary to his expectations. He
astonished the good man by laughing and pounding the floor with his
cane.

"Good!" he cried. "I like a man of your kidney. You have an opinion
and the courage to support it. You are still less a Jesuit than a man.
Brother Jacques here might have acquiesced to all my theories rather
than lose a thousand livres."

"You are wrong, Monsieur," replied Brother Jacques quietly. "I should
go to further lengths of disapprobation. I should say that Monsieur le
Marquis's philosophy is the cult of fools and of madmen, did I not know
that he was simply testing our patience when he advanced such
impossible theories."

"What! two of them?" sarcastically. "I compliment you both upon
risking my good will for an idea."

Chaumonot sighed more deeply. The marquis motioned him to his chair.

"Sit down, Monsieur; you have gained my respect. Frankness in a
Jesuit? Come; what has the Society come to that frankness replaces
cunning and casuistry? Bah! There never was an age but had its prude
to howl 'O these degenerate days!' Corrupt and degenerate you say?
Yes; that is the penal