“Come, come, be calm, my good Brigitte,” returned Thuillier. “We mustn’t do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish a justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to break with him, and I’ll prove to you that I am no milksop. But Cerizet himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only came to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an explanation outright.”
“Not a doubt about it,” replied Brigitte. “You ought to demand an explanation and go to the bottom of this thing; if you don’t, I cast you off as my brother.”
“That suffices,” said Thuillier, leaving the room with solemnity; “you shall see that we will come to an understanding.”
CHAPTER XI. EXPLANATIONS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM
On his return to the office after his conference with Brigitte, Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor-in-chief, and in a position of much embarrassment, caused by the high hand he had reserved for himself as the sole selector of articles and contributors. At this moment, Phellion, instigated by his family, and deeply conscious of his position on the reading-committee of the Odeon, had come to offer his services as dramatic critic.
“My dear monsieur,” he said, continuing his remarks to la Peyrade, after inquiring of Thuillier about his health, “I was a great student of the theatre in my youth; the stage and its scenic effects continue to have for me peculiar attractions; and the white hairs which crown my brow to-day seem to me no obstacle to my allowing your interesting publication to profit by the fruit of my studies and my experience. As member of the reading-committee of the Odeon theatre, I am conversant with the modern drama, and—if I may be quite sure of your discretion—I will even confide to you that among my papers it would not be impossible for me to find a certain tragedy entitled ‘Sapor,’ which in my young days won me some fame when read in salons.”
“Ah!” said la Peyrade, endeavoring to gild the refusal he should be forced to give, “why not try to have it put upon the stage? We might be able to help you in that direction.”
“Certainly,” said Thuillier, “the director of any theatre to whom we should recommend—”
“No,” replied Phellion. “In the first place, as member of the reading-committee of the Odeon, having to sit in judgment upon others, it would not become me to descend into the arena myself. I am an old athlete, whose business it is to judge of blows he can no longer give. In this sense, criticism is altogether within my sphere, and all the more because I have certain views on the proper method of composing dramatic feuilletons which I think novel. The ‘castigat ridendo mores’ ought to be, according to my humble lights, the great law, I may say the only law of the stage. I should therefore show myself pitiless for those works, bred of imagination, in which morality has no part, and to which mothers of families—”