A contradictory question: for she had to earn money for the child, and in order to earn it she had to leave home, and who would take care of him? Annette had to admit that she would never have surmounted these difficulties if they had come earlier, when Marc was very young. How did other women manage? Annette was sorry for the unhappy souls, and she felt humiliated. Place the child in a boarding-school? He was old enough to go to school now. But she was unwilling to shut him up in one of those menageries. What she had heard about those old-time institutions (things have been somewhat improved since then), what she instinctively surmised about this physical and moral promiscuity, had led her to regard it as a crime to put one's child into them. She wanted to believe that the boy would be unhappy there. Who could say? Perhaps he would have been very glad to get away from her. But what mother can believe that she is a burden to her child? She was not even willing to leave him at one of these schools for his meals. She told herself that this was because of Marc's delicate health; he needed special food; she had to watch over his diet. But it was extremely fatiguing to come home from lunch when her lessons obliged her sometimes to run to the other end of Paris. Going, coming, always in movement. And the lessons did not bring in enough money. Some urgent expense was always turning up upon which she had not reckoned. The boy was growing very large, and Annette regretted that he was not like those little beans which never grow faster than their shells. She had to clothe him. Nor could she permit herself to neglect her own appearance; her occupation would have prevented this if her pride had not done so. So she had to find new resources. Copying to be done at home, the work of some foreigner or a translation to be revised (an ungrateful task, poorly remunerated); secretarial work, one or two mornings in the week (also poorly remunerated); but all these things, taken together, were enough. To earn money by any means! Annette did many things at once. She made herself hated by the hungry rivals whom she thrust out of her way in her pursuit of bread. But this time the devil could take the hindmost. No more sentimentality! She had no time for it. You cannot go back and pick up those who have fallen. It was true that she sometimes had the vision in passing of some strained face that stared at her with hostile eyes, some evicted competitor whom she would gladly have helped in other days. A pity, but she did not have the time. She had to get there first. She knew now where to find work, and she knew the shortest way to it. Her diplomas, her degree, gave her an assured superiority. And she was not unaware that she had advantages on another side, the personal side, her eyes, her voice, her way of dressing, her skill in handling her clients. Between her and other applicants they rarely hesitated. Those that were sacrificed could not forgive her.