M. Raindal jumped roughly to his feet and replied sarcastically: "So, I compromise you.... I am bringing dishonor upon you?... Upon your name? It is quite true.... That's it, for the last thirty-five years, I have practically worked for nothing else but that.... Ha! Ha!... It is pure truth!" He grew very excited and began again to walk around the table. "Yes, you are very much to be pitied for having so compromising, as you say, a husband and father!... A man who has piled up turpitude upon turpitude, whose life is but one mass of madness and debauchery.... A man...." Thérèse interrupted him: "There, you are getting angry again, father.... You are jeering at us.... You misinterpret my words intentionally.... What I said, and I maintain my position, was that you could not but hurt yourself by preserving this intimacy with Mme. Chambannes.... I told you so because it was my duty, and because the time had come ... and nothing will prevent me from saying it again...." M. Raindal stopped and crossed his arms over his chest. His glance challenged in turn his wife and Thérèse. "Well, now," said he, "what is it you want?... I should think it was time to explain yourselves!... You wish me not to go to Les Frettes?" "That, to begin with!" Mlle. Raindal replied firmly. "To begin with!... The words are pleasant sounding in themselves, but I am willing to oblige you!... Let the 'to begin with' pass.... And then, after that?..." "Then," the young girl said, "we would like you, without breaking with Mme. Chambannes, to decrease the number of those regular calls, those fixed dinners of yours, because, rightly or wrongly, people are talking and gossiping about it...." "And where is it that they talk, if you please?" "Everywhere!... At the college, at the Institute, among your colleagues, and even in the newspapers...." The master smiled bitterly. "Ah, you are well informed!... It is probably M. Boerzell who...." "He and everyone else, father.... He and all the allusions, the wicked words with which people delight in wounding us, among our relations, our acquaintances, when we pay or are being paid visits...." M. Raindal retorted with a broadside of noisy sarcasm: "Evidently the danger is more serious than I thought. One must not neglect the warnings of so many kind earnest people. One must be cautious and put the brake on.... From now on, I place myself in your hands.... You yourselves will regulate the days and the hours of my visits in the rue de Prony.... If necessary, Brigitte can take me there and bring me back. I am so weak, so inexperienced, so childish!"