“Without doubt!—­they are compelled to go to school,” he answered slowly; “but if I could have had my way, they should never have gone.  They learn mischief there in plenty, but no good that I can see.  They know much about geography, and the stars, and anatomy, and what they call physical sciences;—­but whether they have got it into their heads that the good God wants them to live straight, clean, honest, wholesome lives, is more than I am certain of.  However, I trust Pere Laurent will do what he can.”

“Pere Laurent?” echoed Cazeau, with a wide smile—­“You have a high opinion of Pere Laurent?  Ah, yes, a good man!—­but ignorant—­alas! very ignorant!”

Papa Patoux brought his eyes down from the ceiling and fixed them enquiringly on Cazeau.

“Ignorant?” he began, when at this juncture Madame Patoux entered, and taking possession of Henri and Babette, informed Monsieur Cazeau that the Archbishop would be for some time engaged in conversation with Cardinal Bonpre, and that therefore he, Monsieur Cazeau, need not wait,—­Monseigneur would return to his house alone.  Whereupon the secretary rose, evidently glad to be set at liberty, and took his leave of the Patoux family.  On the threshold, however, he paused, looking back somewhat frowningly at Jean Patoux himself.

“I should not, if I were you, trouble Monseigneur concerning the case you told me of—­that of—­of Marguerite Valmond,”—­he observed—­ “He has a horror of evil women.”

With that he departed, walking across the Square towards the Archbishop’s house in a stealthy sort of fashion, as though he were a burglar meditating some particularly daring robbery.

“He is a rat—­a rat!” exclaimed Henri, suddenly executing a sort of reasonless war-dance round the kitchen—­“One wants a cat to catch him!”

“Rats are nice,” declared Babette, for she remembered having once had a tame white rat which sat on her knee and took food from her hand,—­“Monsieur Cazeau is a man; and men are not nice.”

Patoux burst into a loud laugh.

“Men are not nice!” he echoed—­“What dost thou know about it, thou little droll one?”

“What I see,” responded Babette severely, with an elderly air, as of a person who has suffered by bitter experience; and, undeterred by her parents’ continued laughter she went on—­

“Men are ugly.  They are dirty.  They say ’Come here my little girl, and I will give you something,’—­then when I go to them they try and kiss me.  And I will not kiss them, because their mouths smell bad.  They stroke my hair and pull it all the wrong way.  And it hurts.  And when I don’t like my hair pulled the wrong way, they tell me I will be a great coquette.  A coquette is to be like Diane de Poitiers.  Shall I be like Diane de Poitiers?”

“The saints forbid!” cried Madame Patoux,—­“And talk no more nonsense, child,—­it’s bed-time.  Come,—­say good-night to thy father, Henri;—­give them thy blessing, Jean—­and let me get them into their beds before the Archbishop leaves the house, or they will be asking him as many questions as there are in the catechism.”