Annette could not reply at first; she did not want to understand. What had he said? No, it wasn't possible! And then a blush spread over her forehead. Sitting there, with her hands motionless over her work, she did not stir. Nor did he make any further movement. He was not very proud of what he had said, of what was about to happen. The silence continued a long time. A flood of anger rose in Annette's vehement heart. She let it pass. Pity, irony, took its place. She sighed contemptuously. "Little wretch!" she thought. And at last, as her fingers resumed their task, she said, "And no doubt you consider that a woman without a husband who works to support her child is less worthy of respect?" Marc lost his poise. He did not reply. He did not excuse himself. He was mortified. That night Annette did not sleep. So she had sacrificed herself in vain! That the world should blame her was in the order of things. But he to whom she had given everything! How had he known? Who had breathed this thought into his ear? She could not be angry with him, but she was overwhelmed. Marc slept peacefully. He was not free from remorse, but the sleep was stronger than the remorse. After a good night he would have forgotten it if he had not encountered it again in his mother's anxious look. It annoyed him that his mother had not forgotten as he had. He was sorry, but he could not make up his mind to say so; and, since he was uncomfortable, his childish logic made him angry with his mother. They did not allude to the scene. But after it things were no longer as they had been before. They were constrained when they kissed each other. Annette no longer treated him wholly as a child. How had he known? Conversations at school had made him reflect on the name he bore, which was that of his mother. Old allusions, picked up as they had passed in old days in the workshop, which he had not understood, became clear now. Some imprudent words of Sylvie to her sister, in the child's presence. And the enigma this mother was for him, at once irritating and fascinating him, through the aura of passions which, without the power to discern them, his puppy-instinct had scented. Over it all he had built a strange, vague fairy-tale which did not hang together very closely. His birth puzzled him. How could he find out about it? The reply that hurt his mother was partly a trap he was setting for her. In his heart there was a mingled curiosity and bitterness in regard to what had happened, about which he knew nothing. He had never dared to question Sylvie on the subject, for he was proud on his mother's behalf and he suspected that she had been wronged. But he thought he had the right to be angry with her because of the important secret she was hiding from him. This secret stood like a stranger between herself and him.