The first speaker answered with a gesture of disdain.  “My dear doctor, you occupy a chair in our venerated University.  From that exalted cathedra the Mosaic theory of Creation must still be expounded; but in the security of these surroundings—­the catacombs of the new faith—­why keep up the forms of an obsolete creed?  As long ago as Pythagoras, man was taught that all things were in a state of flux, without end as without beginning, and must we still, after more than two thousand years, pretend to regard the universe as some gigantic toy manufactured in six days by a Superhuman Artisan, who is presently to destroy it at his pleasure?”

“Sir,” cried the other, flushing from red to purple at this assault, “I know not on what ground you insinuate that my private convictions differ from my public doctrine—­”

But here, with a firmness tempered by the most scrupulous courtesy, Professor Vivaldi intervened.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “the discussion in which you are engaged, interesting as it is, must, I fear, distract us from the true purpose of our meeting.  I am happy to offer my house as the asylum of all free research; but you must remember that the first object of these reunions is, not the special study of any one branch of modern science, but the application of physical investigation to the origin and destiny of man.  In other words, we ask the study of nature to lead us to the knowledge of ourselves; and it is because we approach this great problem from a point as yet unsanctioned by dogmatic authority, that I am reluctantly obliged”—­and here he turned to Odo with a smile—­“to throw a veil of privacy over these inoffensive meetings.”

Here at last was the key to the enigma.  The gentlemen assembled in Professor Vivaldi’s rooms were met there to discuss questions not safely aired in public.  They were conspirators indeed, but the liberation they planned was intellectual rather than political; though the acuter among them doubtless saw whither such innovations tended.  Meanwhile they were content to linger in that wide field of speculation which the development of the physical sciences had recently opened to philosophic thought.  As, at the Revival of Learning, the thinker imprisoned in mediaeval dialectics suddenly felt under his feet the firm ground of classic argument, so, in the eighteenth century, philosophy, long suspended in the void of metaphysic, touched earth again and, Antaeus-like, drew fresh life from the contact.  It was clear that Professor Vivaldi, whose very name had been unknown to Odo, was an important figure in the learned world, and one uniting the tact and firmness necessary to control those dissensions from which philosophy itself does not preserve its disciples.  His words calmed the two disputants who were preparing to do battle over Odo’s unborn scientific creed, and the talk growing more general, the Professor turned to his daughter, saying, “My Fulvia, is the study prepared?”