As if he had not heard, Victor began whistling a gay little tune. Then he remarked: “Four more days and my leave will be up. The next time I shall come here to spend all of my _permission_; it should be in August, eight days every four months for the men in the trenches.” Alas, who could tell what might happen before then? Certainly if Victor had any misgivings he would not have said so. “To-morrow,” he added, “we must show Lucie all over the farm. Come, let us go in. It is getting damp.” They went in to where, in the lamp-lighted room, the older people were gathered; Mons. Le Brun poring over the newspapers Victor had brought, Madame his wife knitting, her delicate, little old face outlined against the crimson back of a big chair, and her small nervous hands busy with her work. Madame Guerin sat where she could gather up the papers as her brother-in-law had finished with them. A big, sleepy cat was curled up in her lap--she did not care for dogs--and her bright eyes scanned the columns with sharp eagerness. She was neither so small nor so frail-looking as her sister, and appeared a person of decision and energy. Annette and Lucie seated themselves upon a sofa. Victor sauntered over to the bookcase, and began examining the volumes. “Have you nothing to do, Annette?” Madame Guerin inquired presently. “No, _tante_, I don’t seem to have,” replied Annette. “Then you’d better find something. I dislike to see a girl of your age sitting with her hands in her lap.” “Oh, do let her alone, Clothilde,” Madame Le Brun protested peevishly. “She may do as she pleases this evening when her friend has just come.” “You spoil her, Marcelline,” declared the elder sister. “Not more than you do Victor.” Madame Guerin bridled. “Not more than I do? You can say that when you know that Victor is here on his _permission_, that he suffers in the trenches and that nothing should be denied him? What would you? Is a soldier fighting for his country to be treated like an idle girl?” “Here, here, stop your quarreling, you two old children,” spoke up Victor. “I will spend my _permission_ in Paris the next time, if you begin to wrangle about me. Grandmother, may I have this?” He held up a small book. “What is it?” She turned her head, at the same time pulling the cat farther upon her lap from which he seemed in danger of slipping. “It is selections from the discourses of Epictetus. It belonged to my father.” “It is not one of those objectionable books unfit for a young man to read, and not to be mentioned before young ladies?” Victor laughed and opened the book at random. “Listen to this and then you can judge if it be improper. ‘What matters to me anything that happens while I have greatness of soul?’” He turned over a few pages and again read: “Shall not the fact that God is our Maker, and Father, and Guardian free us from griefs and terrors?”