“The thing’s probably not of importance—only a little word of consideration,” Schinkel suggested soothingly. “We repudiate you, we deny you, we denounce you!” shouted Poupin with magnificent heat. “My poor friends, it’s you who have broken down, not I,” said Hyacinth. “I’m much obliged to you for your solicitude, but the inconsequence is yours. At all events good-night.” He turned away from them and was leaving the room when Madame Poupin threw herself upon him as her husband had done a moment before, but in silence and with an extraordinary force of passion and distress. Being stout and powerful she quickly got the better of him and pressed him to her ample bosom in a long, dumb embrace. “I don’t know what you want me to do,” he said as soon as he could speak. “It’s for me to judge of my convictions.” “We want you to do nothing, because we _know_ you’ve changed,” Poupin insisted. “Doesn’t it stick out of you, in every glance of your eye and every breath of your lips? It’s only for that, because that alters everything.” “Does it alter my sacred vow? There are some things in which one can’t change. I didn’t promise to believe; I promised to obey.” “We want you to be sincere—that’s the great thing,” Poupin all edifyingly urged. “I’ll go to see them—I’ll make them understand.” “Ah you should have done that before!” his poor wife flashed. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’ll allow no one to meddle in my affairs.” Hyacinth spoke now with vehemence; the scene was cruel to his nerves, which were not in a condition to bear it. “When it’s a case of Hoffendahl it’s no good to meddle,” Schinkel gravely contributed. “And pray who’s Hoffendahl and what authority has _he_ got?” demanded Madame Poupin, who had caught his meaning. “Who has put him over us all, and is there nothing to do but to lie down in the dust before him? Let him attend to his little affairs himself and not put them off on innocent children, no matter whether the poor dears are with us or against us.” This protest went so far that Poupin clearly felt bound to recover a dignity. “He has no authority but what we give him; but you know how we respect him and that he’s one of the pure, _ma bonne_. Hyacinth can do exactly as he likes; he knows that as well as we do. He knows there’s not a feather’s weight of compulsion; he knows that for my part I long ago ceased to expect anything of him.” “Certainly there’s no compulsion,” said Schinkel. “It’s to take or to leave. Only _they_ keep the books.” Hyacinth stood there before the three with his eyes on the floor. “Of course I can do as I like, and what I like is what I _shall_ do. Besides, what are we talking about with such sudden passion?” he asked, looking up. “I’ve no summons, I’ve no sign, I’ve no order. When the call reaches me it will be time to discuss it. Let it come or not come: it’s not my affair.” “_Ganz gewiss_, it’s not your affair,” said Schinkel.