How astonished those clear eyes looked! She had totally forgotten of whom they had been speaking. She answered quickly,—“He was called the Marquis de l’Epau.” Jack certainly had but little of his mother’s respect for high birth, its rights and its prerogatives, for he received with the greatest tranquillity the intelligence of his illustrious descent. What mattered it to him that his father was a marquis, and bore a distinguished name? This did not prevent his son from earning his bread as a stoker on the Cydnus. “Look here, Charlotte,” said D’Argenton impatiently, one day, “something must be done! A decided step must be taken with this boy. He cannot remain here forever without doing anything. He is quite well again; he eats like an ox. He coughs a little still, to be sure, but Dr. Hirsch says that is nothing,—that he will always cough. He must decide on something. If the life in the engine-room of a steamer is too severe for him, let him try a railroad.” Charlotte ventured to say, timidly, “If you could see how he loses his breath when he climbs the stairs, and how thin he is, you would still feel that he is far from well. Can you not employ him on some of the office work?” “I will speak to Moronval,” was the reply. The result of this was, that Jack for some days did everything in the office except sweep the rooms. With his usual imperturbability, Jack fulfilled these various duties, enduring the contemptuous remarks of Moronval with the same indifference that he opposed to D’Argenton’s cold contempt. Moronval had a certain fixed salary on the magazine; it was small, to be sure, but he added to it by supplementary labors, for which he was paid certain sums on account. The subscription books lay open on the desk, expenses went on, but no receipts came in. In fact, there was but one subscriber, Charlotte’s friend at Tours, and but one proprietor, and he, with a glue-pot and brush, was at work in a corner. Neither Jack nor any one else realized this; but D’Argenton knew it and felt it hourly, and soon hated more strongly than ever the youth upon whose money he was living. At the end of a week it was announced that Jack was useless in the office. “But, my dear,” said Charlotte, “he does all he can!” “And what is that? He is lazy and indifferent; he knows not how to sit nor how to stand, and he falls asleep over his plate at dinner; and since this great, shambling fellow has appeared here, you have grown ten years older, my love. Besides, he drinks, I assure you that he drinks.” Charlotte bowed her head and wept; she knew that her son drank, but whose fault was it? Had they not thrown him into the gulf? “I have an idea, Charlotte! Suppose we send him to Etiolles for change of air. We will give him a little money, and it will be a good thing for him.” She thanked him enthusiastically, and it was decided that she would go the next day to install her son at Aulnettes.