“Hush, child,” said Granarius, “I fail to note the difference between dying faithful and unfaithful, when it is a question of dying.”
“You will never understand me, sir,” said Anna, in a tone which startled the mild professor, “and as for you, Mr. Jules, all your science and all your charms will never tempt the prince to prove unfaithful. You, sir, shall never be capable of love such as his. A little less science and a trifle more common sense would have suggested keeping him among the dust of his defunct ancestors, where, perchance, he left his living partner, or will find another of red-royal blood.”
The professor and his pupil elated by this marvellous suggestion hastened to replace Jarpeado in the dust from which he had been taken.
Alas! sighed Anna, Jules loves me not, else he would have lingered with me to tell his love. I made the path clear for him. Yet he perceived it not, but has gone with my father to speculate on the introduction of this scarlet _Coccus cacti_ dynasty into Algeria. Following them to the large hothouse in the Jardin des Plantes, Anna { 277} observed her father consigning the small paper of _Coccus cacti_ dust into the centre of the first nopal that had flowered.
A jealous Englishman, witness of this scientific operation, remarked in passing, “This old fool uses the plant as a portfolio!”
“Heat the house well,” cried Granarius, as he fell into a profound reverie, leaving his daughter and Jules to talk of love, or science.
“So, Mr. Jules, you have ceased to love me,” said Anna.
“Nay,” replied Jules, “I do not think you do me justice, but I have come to the conclusion that sentiment, or passion, in all animals, follows a fixed natural law, and being divided between two creatures ought to form a perfect equation.”
“Oh, infernal science! thus to bamboozle a poor brain. Probably your sentiments are established on the equation of dowry, and you have yet to learn what love is, Mr. Jules. If you do not take care, science will claim possession, not only of your soul, but of your body, and you will become a beast like Nebuchadnezzar. History relates that he assumed this form because he devoted seven years to zoology in classing the different species, without once pausing to trim his beard. Six hundred years hence it will be said of certain zoologists that they were advanced types of the Orang-outang who stuck up for their race, and for themselves as examples of progression.”
