“Begone with you and your views!” said the Grandmother angrily as she waved him away.

“And there are trees there, and we could have tea under them,” continued the General⁠—now in utter despair.

“ Nous boirons du lait, sur l’herbe fraiche ,” added De Griers with the snarl almost of a wild beast.

“ Du lait, de l’herbe fraiche ”⁠—the idyll, the ideal of the Parisian bourgeois⁠—his whole outlook upon “ la nature et la verité ”!

“Have done with you and your milk!” cried the old lady. “Go and stuff yourself as much as you like, but my stomach simply recoils from the idea. What are you stopping for? I have nothing to say to you.”