"That would depend," replied the Duke, "upon circumstances. If the phenomenon should take place while the man is alone, doubtless it would be so; but if while at a _seance_ attended by many people, the apparition would be the product of the master passions of all, and thus it is that many of the visions which appear at _seances_ where the sitters are not harmonized are most remarkable and unrecognizable anomalies." "I thought I understood from Mme. de Girardin that certain spirits always appeared." "Pooh, pooh! Mme. de Girardin never went deep enough into the matter. The most ravishing vision I ever saw was when I fancied I saw love." "What? Love! An emanation from yourself?" The Duke sighed. "Ah, that is what proved to me that what I saw could not be love. That sentiment has been too long extinguished in me to awaken to a corporeal expression." "What made you think it was love?" asked Pomerantseff. "It was a white dove with something I cannot express that was human about it. I felt ineffably happy while it was with me." "Your theory is false, I tell you," said the Russian. "What you saw probably was love." "Then it would have been God!" cried the Abbe. "Why?" "I believe with Novalis that 'love is the highest reality,'" replied Gerard; then he added with a laugh, "No, Duke, what you saw was an emanation from yourself--a master passion. It was the corporeal embodiment of your love of pigeon-shooting!" "Perhaps," laughed the Duke. "I tell you what, _mon ami_," said Pomerantseff rising, as he saw the Abbe making preparations to depart. "I am glad that my appetite, corporealized and separated from my discretion, is not in your wine cellar. Your Johannisberg would suffer!" "Prince, you must drive me home," said the Abbe. "I cannot get into a draughty cab at this hour of the night." "_Tres volontiers!_ Good night, Duke. Remember to-morrow morning, at half-past nine, at the Gare de Lyon," said the Prince. "Remember to-morrow night at half-past ten, at Mme. de Langeac's," bawled the Abbe; and so they left. The young nobleman hurried down the cold staircase and into the Prince's brougham. "What a pity," exclaimed the Abbe when they were once fairly started, "that a man with all the mind of De Frontignan should give himself up to such wild ideas and dreams!" "You are not very complimentary," rejoined the other smiling gravely; "for you know that so far as believing in spirits I am as bad if not worse than he is." "Ah, but _you_ are jesting."