“You must not upset yourself like that,” said he; “you have nothing to fear from me; it isn’t my intention to give you any trouble.  Only when I learnt at last where you were I wished to know you, and that was natural, wasn’t it?  I even fancied that perhaps you might be pleased to see me. . . .  Then, too, the truth is that I’m precious badly off.  Three years ago I was silly enough to come back to Paris, where I do little more than starve.  And on the days when one hasn’t breakfasted, one feels inclined to look up one’s parents, even though they may have turned one into the street, for, all the same, they can hardly be so hard-hearted as to refuse one a plateful of soup.”

Tears rose to Norine’s eyes.  This was the finishing stroke, the return of that wretched cast-off son, that big suspicious-looking fellow who accused her and complained of starving.  Annoyed at being unable to elicit from her any response but shivers and sobs, Alexandre turned to Cecile:  “You are her sister, I know,” said he; “tell her that it’s stupid of her to go on like that.  I haven’t come to murder her.  It’s funny how pleased she is to see me!  Yet I don’t make any noise, and I said nothing whatever to the door-porter downstairs, I assure you.”

Then as Cecile, without answering him, rose to go and comfort Norine, he again became interested in the child, who likewise felt frightened and turned pale on seeing the grief of his two mammas.

“So that lad is my brother?”

Thereupon Norine suddenly sprang to her feet and set herself between the child and him.  A mad fear had come to her of some catastrophe, some great collapse which would crush them all.  Yet she did not wish to be harsh, she even sought kind words, but amid it all she lost her head, carried away by feelings of revolt, rancor, instinctive hostility.

“You came, I can understand it.  But it is so cruel.  What can I do?  After so many years one doesn’t know one another, one has nothing to say.  And, besides, as you can see for yourself, I’m not rich.”

Alexandre glanced round the room for the second time.  “Yes, I see,” he answered; “and my father, can’t you tell me his name?”

She remained thunderstruck by this question and turned yet paler, while he continued:  “Because if my father should have any money I should know very well how to make him give me some.  People have no right to fling children into the gutter like that.”

All at once Norine had seen the past rise up before her:  Beauchene, the works, and her father, who now had just quitted them owing to his infirmities, leaving his son Victor behind him.

And a sort of instinctive prudence came to her at the thought that if she were to give up Beauchene’s name she might compromise all her happy life, since terrible complications might ensue.  The dread she felt of that suspicious-looking lad, who reeked of idleness and vice, inspired her with an idea:  “Your father?  He has long been dead,” said she.