The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability, acknowledged to M. d’Argenton that he did not like his present life; that he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from his mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better than manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy’s lips, when he saw a change in his hearer. “You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be very unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century was no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;” and on this text he wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the side of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in the inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to bring her the little criminal,—the boy whom she had not seen for two years, and whom she dearly loved. But D’Argenton had determined to keep them apart. It was wisest—Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would be reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the sacrifice for her child’s interest. And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across its waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards. CHAPTER XVII. IN THE ENGINE-ROOM. How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zénaïde was married, and since Jack’s terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since Zénaïde’s marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former serenity. The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island, part of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled with fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some weeks in the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender and loving when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when the poet looked over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother was, that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals, who now came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at Aulnettes. Moronval, Mâdou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could see little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and the dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered. Thus were Dr. Rivals’ words justified: “It is social distinctions that create final and absolute separations.”