I resented his familiarity, and the impatience with which he spoke; but, resent it as I might, I could not return to the tone I had used yesterday. Then it had seemed an outrageous thing that Buton should stand by and listen. To-day the same thing had an ordinary air. And this, moreover, was a different man from Doury; arguments that had crushed the one would have no weight with the other. I saw that, and, rather helplessly, I asked Father Benôit what he would have. He did not answer. It was the Captain who replied. "We want you to join the Committee," he said briskly. "I discussed that yesterday," I answered with some stiffness. "I cannot do so. Father Benôit will tell you so." "It is not Father Benôit's answer I want," the Captain replied. "It is yours, M. le Vicomte." "I answered yesterday," I said haughtily--"and refused." "Yesterday is not to-day," he retorted. "M. de St. Alais' house stood yesterday; it is a smoking ruin today. M. de Marignac's likewise. Yesterday much was conjecture. To-day facts speak for themselves. A few hours' hesitation, and the province will be in a blaze from one end to the other." I could not gainsay this; at the same time there was one other thing I could not do, and that was change my views again. Having solemnly put on the white cockade in Madame St. Alais' drawing-room, I had not the courage to execute another _volte-face_. I could not recant again. "It is impossible--impossible in my case," I stammered at last peevishly, and in a disjointed way. "Why do you come again to me? Why do you not go to some one else? There are two hundred others whose names----" "Would be of no use to us," M. le Capitaine answered brusquely; "whereas yours would reassure the fearful, attach some moderate men to the cause and not disgust the masses. Let me be frank with you, M. le Vicomte," he continued in a different tone. "I want your co-operation. I am here to take risks, but none that are unnecessary; and I prefer that my commission should issue from above as well as from below. Add your name to the Committee and I accept their commission. Without doubt I could police Quercy in the name of the Third Estate, but I would rather hang, draw, and quarter in the name of all three." "Still, there are others----" "You forget that I have got to rule the _canaille_ in Cahors," he answered impatiently, "as well as these mad clowns, who think that the end of the world is here. And those others you speak of----" "Are not acceptable," Father Benôit said gently, looking at me with yearning in his kind eyes. The light morning air caught the skirts of his cassock as he spoke, and lifted them from his lean figure. He held his shovel hat in his hand, between his face and the sun. I knew that there was a conflict in his mind as in mine, and that he would have me and would have me not; and the knowledge strengthened me to resist his words. "It is impossible," I said. "Why?"