"That granted, the fact remains that my life is not my own with the right to dispose of it as might a private explorer travelling at his own expenses and for his own ends. I have a mission to accomplish, results to obtain. If I could regain my liberty by paying the singular ransom which this country exacts, I should consent to give satisfaction to Antinea according to my ability. I know the tolerance of the Church, and especially that of the order to which I aspire: such a procedure would be ratified immediately and, who knows, perhaps even approved? Saint Mary the Egyptian, gave her body to boatmen under similar circumstances. She received only glorification for it. In so doing she had the certainty of attaining her goal, which was holy. The end justified the means. "But my case is quite different. If I give in to the absurd caprices of this woman, that will not keep me from being catalogued down in the red marble hall, as Number 54, or as Number 55, if she prefers to take you first. Under those conditions...." "Under those conditions?" "Under those conditions, it would be unpardonable for me to acquiesce." "Then what do you intend to do?" "What do I intend to do?" Morhange leaned back in the armchair and smilingly launched a puff of smoke toward the ceiling. "Nothing," he said. "And that is all that is necessary. Man has this superiority over woman. He is so constructed that he can refuse advances." Then he added with an ironical smile: "A man cannot be forced to accept unless he wishes to." I nodded. "I tried the most subtle reasoning on Antinea," he continued. "It was breath wasted. 'But,' I said at the end of my arguments, 'why not Le Mesge?' She began to laugh. 'Why not the Reverend Spardek?' she replied. 'Le Mesge and Spardek are savants whom I respect. But _Maudit soit à jamais rêveur inutile, Qui voulut, le premier, dans sa stupidité, S'éprenant d'un problème insoluble et stérile, Aux choses de l'amour mêler l'honnêteté._ "'Besides,' she added with that really very charming smile of hers, 'probably you have not looked carefully at either of them.' There followed several compliments on my figure, to which I found nothing to reply, so completely had she disarmed me by those four lines from Baudelaire.