"Ah—h! without the firing of a gun they will come to us yet. I tell you, without the firing of a gun—unless we insist on a battle," explosively rejoined a fiery-hued little man sitting next to Monsieur Paul; "but you will see—we shall insist. There is between us and Germany an inextinguishable hate—and we must kill, kill, right and left!"
"Allons—allons!" protested the table, in chorus.
"Yes, yes, a general massacre, that is what we want; that is what we must have. Men, women, and children—all must fall. I am a married man—but not a woman or a child shall escape—when the time comes," continued the fiery-eyed man, getting more and more ferocious as he warmed with the thought of his revenge.
"What a monster!" broke in Madame Le Mois, her deep base notes unruffled by the spectacle of her bloodthirsty neighbor's violence; "you—to bayonet a woman with a child in her arms!"
"I would—I would—"
"Then you would be more cruel than they were. They treated our women with respect."
There was a murmur of assenting applause, at this sentiment of justice, from the table. But the fiery-eyed man was not to be put down.
"Oh, yes, they were generous enough in '71, but I should remember their insults of 1815!"
"Ancienne histoire—çà" said the mère, dismissing the subject, with a humorous wink at the table.
"As you see," was Monsieur Paul's comment on the conversation, as we were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden—"as you see, that sort of person is the bad element in our country—the dangerous element—unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have no talent at all for politics—to be harmless like me, for instance, whose worst vice is to buy up old laces and carvings."