'Say that we should have done differently and were cowardly. It was not out of ill-will to you, but because we were afraid of M. Heger, with whom one must not reason when he is in a bad humour, as every one knows. You and Marie Hazard, for instance, who must always be in the right with him, in what way does it serve you? Voyons: be frank; at least: _cela vous réussit-il?_ Listen then: we will make it all plain with Madame Heger. Mlle. Zélie will tell her we knew nothing when we ate those gooseberries; we thought they were there for us--that it belonged to the feast to eat this fruit: they were not so very good, these gooseberries after all: it was a politeness on our part, not greediness. Every one nearly ate gooseberries. When we were told it was a mistake, we ate no more gooseberries, and were sorry. La petite Anglaise and Marie Hazard did as the others did: and here is the whole history. Now all this is known already to almost every one. It will be known to Madame Heger before we go home to-night. What then do you want? Look at Marie Hazard: she is in the same case as you are, and does not afflict herself.' 'Marie Hazard is at home here, and I am not at home. I am English; and I am told by M. Heger before you all, that because I am English I am capable of baseness.' 'And what does that do to you?' asked Marie Hazard, herself, turning upon me with her cruel reasonableness. 'English or Belgian, one is not capable of baseness, and one has not deserved any blame: that is what is serious; the rest signifies nothing. One must not be a patriot to this extent. It is not reasonable. If even you had been in the wrong about those gooseberries, do you truly imagine to yourself that the honour of England would have been affected by it?' Just _because_ this was so reasonable and true, it stung me to the soul. '_Ma chère et bonne amie_,' wrote Rousseau to Madame d'Epinay in the days of their friendship, when explaining why he had burnt a letter to her that seemed to him more reasonable than kind: '_Pythagore disait qu'il ne faut jamais attiser le feu avec une épée. Cette sentence me paraît être la plus importante et la plus sacrée des lois de l'amitié_.' I knew nothing about the sayings of Pythagoras, nor the writings of Rousseau in those days. But it did seem to me opposed to the sacred laws of friendship, to remind me, in this moment, that it was absurd in me to drag patriotism into this question. 'Leave me alone,' I said, turning my back upon them, 'you tire me, all of you; none of you understand me.'