“It is getting late, my dear,” and he pointed to the clock.

“Oh, Monsieur Felix,” said Celeste in a whisper to the candid mathematician, “Couldn’t you be, like Pascal and Bossuet, learned and pious both?”

The Phellions, on departing, carried the Collevilles with them.  Soon no one remained in the salon but Dutocq, Theodose, and the Thuilliers.

The flattery administered by Theodose to Flavie seems at the first sight coarsely commonplace, but we must here remark, in the interests of this history, that the barrister was keeping himself as close as possible to these vulgar minds; he was navigating their waters; he spoke their language.  His painter was Pierre Grassou, and not Joseph Bridau; his book was “Paul and Virginia.”  The greatest living poet for him was Casimire de la Vigne; to his eyes the mission of art was, above all things, utility.  Parmentier, the discoverer of the potato, was greater to him that thirty Raffaelles; the man in the blue cloak seemed to him a sister of charity.  These were Thuillier’s expressions, and Theodose remembered them all—­on occasion.

“That young Felix Phellion,” he now remarked, “is precisely the academical man of our day; the product of knowledge which sends God to the rear.  Heavens, what are we coming to?  Religion alone can save France; nothing but the fear of hell will preserve us from domestic robbery, which is going on at all hours in the bosom of families, and eating into the surest fortunes.  All of you have a secret warfare in your homes.”

After this shrewd tirade, which made a great impression upon Brigitte, he retired, followed by Dutocq, after wishing good evening to the three Thuilliers.

“That young man has great capacity,” said Thuillier, sententiously.

“Yes, that he has,” replied Brigitte, extinguishing the lamps.

“He has religion,” said Madame Thuillier, as she left the room.

“Monsieur,” Phellion was saying to Colleville as they came abreast of the Ecole de Mines, looking about him to see that no one was near, “it is usually my custom to submit my insight to that of others, but it is impossible for me not to think that that young lawyer plays the master at our friend Thuillier’s.”

“My own opinion,” said Colleville, who was walking with Phellion behind his wife, Madame Phellion, and Celeste, “is that he’s a Jesuit; and I don’t like Jesuits; the best of them are no good.  To my mind a Jesuit means knavery, and knavery for knavery’s sake; they deceive for the pleasure of deceiving, and, as the saying is, to keep their hand in.  That’s my opinion, and I don’t mince it.”

“I understand you, monsieur,” said Phellion, who was arm-in-arm with Colleville.

“No, Monsieur Phellion,” remarked Flavie in a shrill voice, “you don’t understand Colleville; but I know what he means, and I think he had better stop saying it.  Such subjects are not to be talked of in the street, at eleven o’clock at night, and before a young lady.”