At one o’clock precisely I was shown into the manager’s office. M. Thierry, his nose more congested than ever, and his eyes more crafty, preached me a deadly sermon, blamed my want of discipline, absence of respect, and scandalous conduct, and finished his pitiful harangue by advising me to beg Mme. Nathalie’s pardon. “I have asked her to come,” he added, “and you must apologize to her before three _Sociétaires_ belonging to the Committee. Is she consents to forgive you the Committee will then consider whether to fine you or to cancel your engagement.” I did not reply for a few minutes. I thought of my mother in distress, my godfather laughing in his bourgeois way, and my Aunt Faure triumphant, with her usual phrase: “That child is terrible!” I thought, too, of my beloved Brabender with her hands clasped, her mustache drooping sadly, her small eyes full of tears, so touching in their mute supplication. I could hear my gentle, timid Mme. Guérard arguing with everyone, so courageous she was always in her confidence in my future. “Well, mademoiselle?” said M. Thierry curtly. I looked at him without speaking and he began to get impatient. “I will go and ask Mme. Nathalie to come here,” he said, “and I beg you will do your part as quickly as possible, for I have other things to attend to than to put your blunders right.” “Oh, no, do not fetch Mme. Nathalie,” I said at last, “I shall not apologize to her. I will leave. I will cancel my engagement at once.” He was stupefied, and his arrogance melted away in pity for the ungovernable, willful child who was about to ruin her whole future for the sake of a question of self-esteem. He was at once gentler and more polite. He asked me to sit down, which he had not hitherto done, and he sat down himself opposite to me and spoke to me gently about the advantages of the Comédie, and of the danger that there would be for me in leaving that illustrious theater which had done me the honor of admitting me. He gave me a hundred other very good, wise reasons which softened me. When he saw the effect he had made, he wanted to send for Mme. Nathalie, but I roused up then like a little wild animal. “Oh, don’t let her come here, I should slap her again!” I exclaimed. “Well, then, I must ask your mother to come,” he said. “My mother would never come,” I replied. “Then I will go and call on her.” “It will be quite useless,” I persisted, “my mother has given me my liberty, and I am quite free to lead my own life. I alone am responsible for all that I do.”