“But Manicheism is impossible!” cried the bell-ringer.  “Two infinities cannot exist together.”

“But nothing can exist if you get to reasoning.  The moment you argue the Catholic dogma everything goes to pieces.  The proof that two infinities can coexist is that this idea passes beyond reason and enters the category of those things referred to in Ecclesiasticus:  ’Inquire not into things higher than thou, for many things have shown themselves to be above the sense of men.’

“Manicheism, you see, must have had some good in it, because it was bathed in blood.  At the end of the twelfth century thousands of Albigenses were roasted for practising this doctrine.  Of course, I can’t say that the Manicheans didn’t abuse their cult, mostly made up of devil worship, because we know very well they did.

“On this point I am not with them,” he went on slowly, after a silence.  He was waiting till Mme. Carhaix, who had got up to remove the plates, should go out of the room to fetch the beef.

“While we are alone,” he said, seeing her disappear through the stairway door, “I can tell you what they did.  An excellent man named Psellus has revealed to us, in a book entitled De operatione Daemonum, the fact that they tasted of the two excrements at the beginning of their ceremonial, and that they mixed human semen with the host.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Carhaix.

“Oh, as they took both kinds of communion, they did better than that,” returned Des Hermies.  “They cut children’s throats and mixed the blood with ashes, and this paste, dissolved in liquid, constituted the Eucharistic wine.”

“You bring us right back to Satanism,” said Durtal.

“Why, yes, as you see, I haven’t strayed off your subject.”

“I am sure Monsieur Des Hermies has been saying something awful,” murmured Mme. Carhaix as she came in, bearing a platter on which was a piece of beef smothered in vegetables.

“Oh, Madame,” protested Des Hermies.

They burst out laughing and Carhaix cut up the meat, while his wife poured the cider and Durtal uncorked the bottle of anchovies.

“I am afraid it’s cooked too much,” said the woman, who was a great deal more interested in the beef than in other-world adventures, and she added the famous maxim of housekeepers, “When the broth is good the beef won’t cut.”

The men protested that it wasn’t stringy a bit, it was cooked just right.

“Have an anchovy and a little butter with your meat, Monsieur Durtal.”

“Wife, let’s have some of the red cabbage that you preserved,” said Carhaix, whose pale face was lighted up while his great canine eyes were becoming suspiciously moist.  Visibly he was jubilant.  He was at table with friends, in his tower, safe from the cold.  “But, empty your glasses.  You are not drinking,” he said, holding up the cider pot.

“Let’s see, Des Hermies, you were claiming yesterday that Satanism has pursued an uninterrupted course since the Middle Ages,” said Durtal, wishing to get back to the subject which haunted him.