is but one end, and this end focuses on death, unfeeling sod, and worms.  Shall I die to-morrow?  I enjoyed yesterday.  And had I died yesterday, I should now be beyond the worry of to-morrow.  I wish no man’s death, because he believes not as I believe.  I wish his death only when he has wronged me . . . or I have wronged him.  I do not say to you, ‘Monsieur, be a heretic’; I say merely, permit me to be one if I choose.  And what is a soul?” He blew upon the gold knob of his stick, and watched the moisture evaporate.

“Thought, Monsieur; thought is the soul.  Can you dissect the process of reason?  Can you define of what thought consists?  No, Monsieur; there you stop.  You possess thought, but you can not tell whence it comes, or whither it goes when it leaves this earthly casket.  This is because thought is divine.  When on board a ship, in whom do you place your trust?” Chaumonot’s eyes were burning with religious zeal.

“I trust the pilot, because I see him at the wheel.  I speak to him, and he tells me whither we are bound.  I understand your question, and have answered it.  You would say, ‘God is the pilot of our souls.’  But what proof?  I do not see God; and I place no trust in that which I can not see.  Thought, you say, is the soul.  Well, then, a soul has the ant, for it thinks.  What! a Heaven and a hell for the ant?  Ah, but that would be droll!  I own 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.”