“You are repeating, Celeste, the lessons your confessor teaches you; nothing, believe me, is more fatal to happiness than the interference of priests in a home.”

“Oh!” cried Celeste, wounded to the quick, for love alone inspired her, “you do not love!  The voice of my heart is not in unison with yours!  You have not understood me, because you have not listened to me; but I forgive you, for you know not what you say.”

She wrapped herself in solemn silence, and Felix went to the window and drummed upon the panes,—­music familiar to those who have indulged in poignant reflections.  Felix was, in fact, presenting the following delicate and curious questions to the Phellion conscience.

“Celeste is a rich heiress, and, in yielding against the voice of natural religion, to her ideas, I should have in view the making of what is certainly an advantageous marriage,—­an infamous act.  I ought not, as father of a family, to allow the priesthood to have an influence in my home.  If I yield to-day, I do a weak act, which will be followed by many others equally pernicious to the authority of a husband and father.  All this is unworthy of a philosopher.”

Then he returned to his beloved.

“Celeste, I entreat you on my knees,” he said, “not to mingle that which the law, in its wisdom, has separated.  We live in two worlds, —­society and heaven.  Each has its own way of salvation; but as to society, is it not obeying God to obey the laws?  Christ said:  ’Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.’  Caesar is the body politic.  Dear, let us forget our little quarrel.”

“Little quarrel!” cried the young enthusiast; “I want you to have my whole heart as I want to have the whole of yours; and you make it into two parts!  Is not that an evil?  You forget that marriage is a sacrament.”

“Your priesthood have turned your head,” exclaimed the mathematician, impatiently.

“Monsieur Phellion,” said Celeste, interrupting him hastily, “enough of this!”

It was at this point of the quarrel that Theodose considered it judicious to enter the room.  He found Celeste pale, and the young professor as anxious as a lover should be who has just irritated his mistress.

“I heard the word ‘enough’; then something is too much?” he said, inquiringly, looking in turn from Celeste to Felix.

“We were talking religion,” replied Felix, “and I was saying to mademoiselle how dangerous ecclesiastical influence is in the bosom of families.”

“That was not the point, monsieur,” said Celeste, sharply; “it was to know if husband and wife could be of one heart when the one is an atheist and the other Catholic.”