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 I am not responsible for it. What do you expect? You must take the consequences. Life is life."

I became indignant.

"Then you are going to drop me? You are a wretch, a scoundrel, like the others, do you know it?"

William smiled. He was really a superior man.

"Oh! don't say useless things. I have made you no promises. Nor have you made me any. People meet; that is well. They part; that is well, too. Life is life."

And he added, sententiously:

"You see, Célestine, in life there must be conduct; there must be what I call administration. You have no conduct; you have no administration. You allow yourself to be carried away by your nerves In our business nerves are a very bad thing. Remember this well: life is life."

I think I should have thrown myself upon him and torn his face, his emotionless and cowardly face of a flunky, with furious digs of my nails, if tears had not suddenly come to soften and relax my overstrained nerves. My wrath fell, and I begged:

"Oh! William! William! my little William! my dear little William! how unhappy I am!"

William tried to revive my drooping spirits a little. I must say that he made use of all his powers of persuasion and all his philosophy.