I looked at him without speaking, and he began to get impatient. “I will go and ask Madame 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 Madame Nathalie,” I said at last. “I shall not apologise 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, wilful 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 theatre, which had done me the honour 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 Madame Nathalie, but I roused up then like a little wild animal. “Oh, don’t let her come here; I should box her ears again!” I exclaimed. “Well then, I must ask your mother to come,” he said. “My mother would never come,” I said. “Then I will go and call on her,” he remarked. “It will be quite useless,” I persisted. “My mother has emancipated me, and I am quite free to lead my own life. I alone am responsible for all that I do.” “Well then, Mademoiselle, I will think it over,” he said, rising, to show me that the interview was at an end. I went back home, determined to say nothing to my mother; but my little sister when questioned about her wound had told everything in her own way, exaggerating, if possible, the brutality of Madame Nathalie and the audacity of what I had done. Rose Baretta, too, had been to see me, and had burst into tears, assuring my mother that my engagement would be cancelled. The whole family was very much excited and distressed when I arrived, and when they began to argue with me it made me still more nervous. I did not take calmly the reproaches which one and another of them addressed to me, and I was not at all willing to follow their advice. I went to my room and locked myself in. The following day no one spoke to me, and I went up to Madame Guérard to be comforted and consoled. Several days passed by, and I had nothing to do at the theatre. Finally one morning I received a notice requesting me to be present at the reading of a play,—_Dolorès_, by M. Bouilhet. This was the first time I had been asked to attend the reading of a new piece. I was evidently to have a _rôle_ to “create.” All my sorrows were at once dispersed like a cloud of butterflies. I told my mother of my joy, and she naturally concluded that as I was asked to attend a reading my engagement was not to be cancelled, and I was not to be asked again to apologise to Madame Nathalie.