Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/216

Rh would throw me even a bone. I am glad to think it is voluntary, this throwing overboard of carrion."

Eliza. "Voluntary? Of course it is voluntary. I don't adopt other people's ready-made prejudices, Mr. Baring. I have never heard the professor scoff openly at religion before, and I can't bear it."

Elton (in French, continuing his discussion with the professor). "Quite a mistake, monsieur. In England, some of the greatest thinkers of every age have struggled for faith. Some have been men of real piety. Infidelity—rank, downright infidelity—a good deal played out. 'Very cheap,' as we say." (Trans. "Bon Marché" somewhat puzzled his hearers.)

''Mdme. de Belcour (leaning across''). "Cher docteur!"

Morin. "Madame?"

''Mdme. de B.'' "Pray change the conversation! I feel as if it were Lent—as if I ought to fast—and I want to eat this fricandeau. Let us all agree to be religious by-and-by, and amuse ourselves now."

Morin (laughing). "Like Saint Augustine, who prayed to be made good—'but not to-day, O Lord!

Doucet (demoniacally). "What is 'good' and 'bad'? Who knows? To sin as Nature, the great mother, dictates, and then to bow down to the dust, and pray forgiveness with streaming eyes, and then to sin again—what is the good? what is the bad? To the poet, the two extremes are equally moving, and he knows not under which phase his soul"

Morin. "Ah! talk about his body, mon petit Doucet. Leave his soul alone. You have studied that less than the other."