places which they fill so well. I insist, however, on a temporary exclusion as a punishment; for it is a punishment to Le Hourteulx and Beaufrelant. After that, if they are very good ..."
"And you will be pleasant to them?"
"To them and to the others, at least as pleasant as I can."
"Is it so very difficult?"
"Extremely! I can't help it: I do not suffer fools gladly; they make me irritable and unjust. I have not your charity."
"It only needs a little indulgence; think of your mother."
"Oh, my mother, my mother!"
There was something sorrowful and harsh about this exclamation that struck Gilberte. She kept silence from a sense of delicacy. But Guillaume was passing through one of those periods when it is a relief to the overburdened soul to confess its troubles:
"Have my mother and I ever understood each other? We have not an idea in com-
