'They do,' cried the curate rapturously, 'indeed they do. I will drink another bottle for your sake. It is sublime!' he said, as he tossed off three glasses. 'It is significant!' he said as he finished three more. 'Tell me, my dear, do I look significant?' he added, as he turned to Virginia, and suddenly tried, to crown the general bliss by kissing her. Virginia started back, looking fire and fury at him. The Professor was completely astounded by an occurrence so unnatural, and exclaimed in a voice of thunder, 'Morality, sir--remember morality! How dare you upset that which Professor Huxley tells us must be for ever strong enough to hold its own?' But the last glass of champagne had put the curate beyond the reach of exact thought. He tumbled under the table, and the Professor carried him off to bed. CHAPTER X. The Professor, like most serious thinkers, knew but little of that trifle commonly called 'the world.' He had never kissed any one except his wife; even that he did as seldom as possible; and the curate lying dead drunk was the first glimpse he had of what, _par excellence_, is described as 'life.' But though the scene just recounted was thus a terrible shock to him, in one way it gave him an unlooked-for comfort. He had felt that even yet things were not quite as sublime as they should be. He now saw the reason. 'Of course,' he said, 'existence cannot be perfect so long as one third of Humanity makes a beast of itself. A little more progress must be still necessary.' He hastened to explain this next morning to Virginia, and begged her not to be alarmed at the curate's scandalous conduct. 'Immorality,' he said, 'is but a want of success in attaining our own happiness. It is evidently most immoral for the curate to be kissing you; and therefore kissing you would not really conduce to his happiness. I will convince him of this solemn truth in a very few moments. Then the essential dignity of human nature will become at once apparent, and we shall all of us at last begin to be unspeakably happy.' The curate, however, altogether declined to be convinced. He maintained stoutly that to kiss Virginia would be the greatest pleasure that Humanity could offer him. 'And if it is immoral as well as pleasant,' he added, 'I should like it all the better.' At this the Professor gave a terrible groan; he dropped almost fainting into a chair; he hid his face in his hands; and murmured half-articulately, 'Then I can't tell what to do!' In another instant, however, he recovered himself; and fixing a dreadful look on the curate, 'That last statement of yours,' he said, 'cannot be true; for if it were, it would upset all my theories. It is a fact that can be proved and verified, that if you kissed Virginia it would make you miserable.' 'Pardon me,' said the curate, rapidly moving towards her, 'your notion is a remnant of superstition; I will explode it by a practical experiment.'