hout knowing what he had done, lamented his
imprudence and asked with tears: "Why, why he had not kept silent? Had
they not trouble enough? What was this mania he had for talking? And
particularly for talking differently from other people?"

While this was going on, Rosine came back from an errand, and
Clerambault appealed to her, telling her in a confused manner of the
painful scene that had just taken place, and begging her to sit down
there by his table and let him read the article to her. Without even
taking off her hat and gloves, Rosine did sit down near him, and
listened sensibly, sweetly, and when he had done, kissed him and said:

"Yes, I think it's fine,--but, dear Papa, why did you do it?"
Clerambault was completely taken aback.

"What? You ask why I did it? Don't you think it is right?"

"I don't know. Yes, I believe it must be right since you say so....
But perhaps it was not necessary to write it...."

"Not necessary? But if it is right, it must be necessary."

"But if it makes such a fuss!"

"That is no reason against it."

"But why stir people up?"

"Look here, my little girl, you think as I do about this, do you not?"

"Yes, Papa, I suppose so...."

"You only suppose?... Come now, you detest the war, as I do, and wish
it were over; everything that I wrote there I have said to you, and
you agreed...."

"Yes, Papa."

"Then you think I am right?"

"Yes, Papa." She put her arms around his neck, "but we don't have to
write everything that we think."

Clerambault, much depressed, tried to explain what seemed so evident
to him. Rosine listened, and answered quietly, but it was clear that
she did not understand. When he had finished, she kissed him again and
said:

"I have told you what I think, Papa, but it is not for me to judge.
You know much better than I."

With that she went into her room, smiling at her father, and not
in the least suspecting that she had just taken away from him his
greatest support.

This abusive attack was not the only one, for when the bell was once
tied on the cat it never ceased to ring. However, the noise would
have been drowned in the general tumult, if it had not been for
a persistent voice which led the chorus of malignity against
Clerambault.

Unhappily it was the voice of one of his oldest friends, the author
Octave Bertin; for they had been school-fellows at the Lycee Henri IV.
Bertin, a little Parisian, quick-witted, elegant, and precocious, had
w