“A lost treatise of Saint Optat,” he said.  “Oh, if only Dom Granger were here.  See, it is written in semi-uncial characters.”

I did not reply.  My eyes were fixed on an object which lay on the table beside the manuscript.  It was an orichalch ring, exactly like that which Antinea had given me the previous day and the one which she herself wore.

Morhange smiled.

“Well?” I said.

“Well?”

“You have seen her?”

“I have indeed,” Morhange replied.

“She is beautiful, is she not?”

“It would be difficult to dispute that,” my comrade answered.  “I even believe that I can say that she is as intelligent as she is beautiful.”

There was a pause.  Morhange was calmly fingering the orichalch ring.

“You know what our fate is to be?”

“I know.  Le Mesge explained it to us yesterday in polite mythological terms.  This evidently is an extraordinary adventure.”

He was silent, then said, looking at me: 

“I am very sorry to have dragged you here.  The only mitigating feature is that since last evening you seem to have been bearing your lot very easily.”

Where had Morhange learned this insight into the human heart?  I did not reply, thus giving him the best of proofs that he had judged correctly.

“What do you think of doing?” I finally murmured.

He rolled up the manuscript, leaned back comfortably in his armchair and lit a cigar.

“I have thought it over carefully.  With the aid of my conscience I have marked out a line of conduct.  The matter is clear and admits no discussion.

“The question is not quite the same for me as for you, because of my semi-religious character, which, I admit, has set out on a rather doubtful adventure.  To be sure, I have not taken holy orders, but, even aside from the fact that the ninth commandment itself forbids my having relations with a woman not my wife, I admit that I have no taste for the kind of forced servitude for which the excellent Cegheir-ben-Cheikh has so kindly recruited us.

“That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his own expenses and for his own ends.  I have a mission to accomplish, results to obtain.  If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability.  I know the tolerance of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire:  such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps even approved?  Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under similar circumstances.  She received only glorification for it.  In so doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy.  The end justified the means.

“But my case is quite different.  If I give in to the absurd caprices of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take you first.  Under those conditions....”