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thqt [that] was sufficient; I never doubted her loyalty. With her by my side I could defy not only the school but the whole world too.

Alas! I was cruelly mistaken. My friend belonged to the herd; artfully they had approached her and finally drawn her away. This desertion caused me my first pangs of disillusioned love. The desire to evade the herd while at the mercy of one of its members was only one of many such paradoxical phases experienced during my troubled life. 

Madamoiselle Bertin was dismayed at seeing how things were turning. Never had there been such a state of affairs in her school. "You must all meet and become friends again", she said. Accordingly a meeting was arranged round the schoolroom table. I, the only stranger there, found myself face to face with the united hostility of many nations. My renegade friend was seated opposite me at the other end of the table. Caring little for the effect made by an impromptu action I got up and walked over to her. Placing my arm around her shoulder I began a speech in French wherein I sarcastically denounced "cette amie pour la vie".

Surprised, she said nothing, nor did anyone else. As my excited words allowed of no margin for reconciliation, it was in silence that I left the room to seek the isolation necessary to nurse my wounds. The make-believe was over. There was now plenty of time to draw sad, drooping figures under equally sad, dropping willow trees; or if the mood demanded, Death and the Devil rocking the cradle of doomed infants. I still possess the drawing of this last subject.