CHAPTER V. HATE AND HAND-BILLS. When Mademoiselle returned to her own drawing-room, she found her brother there,--an unexpected visitor at this time of day, when he was usually engaged in his counting-house. He was standing at the window, with his eyes fixed upon a newspaper, which he might or might not be reading, so completely was his attitude one of meditation. "I have waited for you," he said; "I wished to see you before I went out again. Are you ready to go back to France?" "To France! Is there to be a war?" "Only that war which wars of arms bring on,--war against classes and individuals, arising out of national jealousy. No, thank God! the slaughter of tens of thousands is at an end; and what matters the ruin of one insignificant Frenchman?" "Ruin! Are they going to ruin you?" asked his sister, her eyes flashing. "No anger, my dear," said M. Gaubion. "Judge not these English people by the example of our happier countrymen. They have been trained for centuries to suspicions like this;--(handing the newspaper to his sister, and pointing out a paragraph.) "I was aware of this training, and I ought not to have come. It is for the Frenchmen of two centuries hence to be the brethren of Englishmen." "But you can disprove this charge," urged Mademoiselle; "or, as the duty of proof rests with your enemies, you can dare them to the proof. Let them show, if they can, that you carry on your business as a cloak to hidden practices. Let them lay a finger on a single article smuggled by you. They cannot; and this is a mere calumny,--a newspaper calumny." M. Gaubion pointed out that the charge was contained in a report of some significance, and was not one of the common paragraphs which no wise man thinks it worth while to be vexed at. Its appearance in such a mode indicated a hostility in persons interested in the silk trade, which would probably end in sending a peaceably-disposed man home again. "I have been trying to make myself an English woman ever since I came," observed Mademoiselle, "but I will cease the endeavour; it is better to be French." "Nay, France may blush for similar follies. How long was it before we had men wise enough to discover, that if France received cottons, it must be in return for something that France had produced! When some few perceived this, what cries issued from our work-shops! What certainty did some feel that the total disorganization of society would ensue! How others rehearsed the dirge which must presently be sung over the tomb of French industry! And who knows but that a Manchester man might then have been torn in pieces by the prejudiced operatives of France?" "But did you not say just now that the English are peculiarly prejudiced on this matter?"