ks!" My uncle sniffed with emotion as he looked at me, expecting
to see me totter beneath his threats. I made no answer for a moment; but
a thought which had been harassing me from the beginning of our interview
compelled me to say:

"I have only one thing to ask you, Monsieur Mouillard."

"Further respite, I suppose? Time to reflect and fool me again? No, a
hundred times no! I've had enough of you; a fortnight, not a day more!"

"No, sir; I do not ask for respite."

"So much the better, for I should refuse it. What do you want?"

"Monsieur Mouillard, I trust that Jeanne was not present at the
interview, that she heard none of it, that she was not forced to blush--"

My uncle sprang to his feet, seized his gloves, which lay spread out on
the table, bundled them up, flung them passionately into his hat, clapped
the whole on his head, and made for the door with angry strides.

I followed him; he never looked back, never made answer to my "Good-by,
uncle." But, at the sixth step, just before turning the corner, he raised
his stick, gave the banisters a blow fit to break them, and went on his
way downstairs exclaiming:

"Damnation!"

May 20th.

And so we have parted with an oath, my uncle and I! That is how I have
broken with the only relative I possess. It is now ten days since then. I
now have five left in which to mend the broken thread of the family
tradition, and become a lawyer. But nothing points to such conversion. On
the contrary, I feel relieved of a heavy weight, pleased to be free, to
have no profession. I feel the thrill of pleasure that a fugitive from
justice feels on clearing the frontier. Perhaps I was meant for a
different course of life than the one I was forced to follow. As a child
I was brought up to worship the Mouillard practice, with the fixed idea
that this profession alone could suit me; heir apparent to a lawyer's
stool--born to it, brought up to it, without any idea, at any rate for a
long time, that I could possibly free myself from the traditions of the
law's sacred jargon.

I have quite got over that now. The courts, where I have been a frequent
spectator, seem to me full of talented men who fine down and belittle
their talents in the practice of law. Nothing uses up the nobler virtues
more quickly than a practice at the bar. Generosity, enthusiasm,
sensibility, true and ready sympathy--all are taken, leaving the man, in
many instances nothing but a skilfu