“Believe me, Balthazar, nature made us to feel; and though you may wish us to be mere electrical machines, yet your gases and your ethereal disengaged matters will never explain the gift we possess of looking into futurity.”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, “by affinity.  The power of vision which makes the poet, the power of deduction which makes the man of science, are based on invisible affinities, intangible, imponderable, which vulgar minds class as moral phenomena, whereas they are physical effects.  The prophet sees and deduces.  Unfortunately, such affinities are too rare and too obscure to be subjected to analysis or observation.”

“Is this,” she said, giving him a kiss to drive away the Chemistry she had so unfortunately reawakened, “what you call an affinity?”

“No; it is a compound; two substances that are equivalents are neutral, they produce no reaction—­”

“Oh! hush, hush,” she cried, “you will make me die of grief.  I can never bear to see my rival in the transports of your love.”

“But, my dear life, I think only of you.  My work is for the glory of my family.  You are the basis of all my hopes.”

“Ah, look me in the eyes!”

The scene had made her as beautiful as a young woman; of her whole person Balthazar saw only her head, rising from a cloud of lace and muslin.

“Yes, I have done wrong to abandon you for Science,” he said.  “If I fall back into thought and preoccupation, then, my Pepita, you must drag me from them; I desire it.”

She lowered her eyes and let him take her hand, her greatest beauty, —­a hand that was both strong and delicate.

“But I ask more,” she said.

“You are so lovely, so delightful, you can obtain all,” he answered.

“I wish to destroy that laboratory, and chain up Science,” she said, with fire in her eyes.

“So be it—­let Chemistry go to the devil!”

“This moment effaces all!” she cried.  “Make me suffer now, if you will.”

Tears came to Balthazar’s eyes, as he heard these words.

“You were right, love,” he said.  “I have seen you through a veil; I have not understood you.”

“If it concerned only me,” she said, “willingly would I have suffered in silence, never would I have raised my voice against my sovereign.  But your sons must be thought of, Claes.  If you continue to dissipate your property, no matter how glorious the object you have in view the world will take little account of it, it will only blame you and yours.  But surely, it is enough for a man of your noble nature that his wife has shown him a danger he did not perceive.  We will talk of this no more,” she cried, with a smile and a glance of coquetry.  “To-night, my Claes, let us not be less than happy.”

CHAPTER VII