The servant announcing dinner interrupted the poor Abbé's complaints.
"I tell you what I should do," said Pomerantseff when they were seated at table. "I should say to every man and woman who came to me on such errands, 'My dear friend, my business is with your spiritual welfare, and with that alone. The doctor and solicitor must take care of your worldly concerns. It is my duty to insure your eternal felicity when the tedium of delirium tremens and the divorce court is all over, and that is really all one man can do.'"
"By the way, talking of spiritual matters," interrupted the Duke, "Pomerantseff has been telling me his experience with a man you detest, Abbé."
"I can only judge from your own words," rejoined Frontignan. "Did you not tell me years ago that you thought Home a more serious evil than the typhoid fever?"
"Ah, Home the medium!" cried Gérard in great disgust. "I admit you are right. It is not possible, Prince, that you encourage Frontignan in his absurd spiritualism."
"I do not pretend to encourage any man in anything, _mon cher Abbé_."
"_Dieu de Dieu!_" exclaimed Gérard. "What folly! What are we all coming to?"
"It has always struck me as remarkable," said the Duke, "that with all your taste for the curious and unknown, you have never been tempted into investigating the matter, Abbé."
"I am, as you say, a lover of the curious," replied the priest, "but not of such empty trash as spiritualism. I have enough cares with the realities of this world without bringing upon myself the misery of investigating the possibilities of the next."
"That is a sentiment worthy of Abbé Dubois," said Pomerantseff laughing, and then the Duke, suddenly making some inquiry relative to the train which was to take him and the Prince to Brunoy on a shooting expedition the following morning, the subject for the nonce was dropped. It was destined, however, to be revived later in the evening, for when after dinner they were comfortably ensconced in the _tabagie_, Frontignan, who had been greatly excited by some extraordinary manifestations related to him by the Prince before the arrival of the Abbé, said abruptly:
"Now, Gérard, you must really let us convert you to spiritualism."
"It is absurd for you to disbelieve, for you know nothing about it, since you have never been willing to attend a _séance_."