“For myself,” she said, “by nursing the sick, or living as a housekeeper in some great family, I could support myself and Monsieur Clapart; but you, Oscar, what could you do?  You have no means, and you must earn some, for you must live.  There are but four careers for a young man like you,—­commerce, government employment, the licensed professions, or military service.  All forms of commerce need capital, and we have none to give you.  In place of capital, a young man can only give devotion and his capacity.  But commerce also demands the utmost discretion, and your conduct yesterday proves that you lack it.  To enter a government office, you must go through a long probation by the help of influence, and you have just alienated the only protector that we had,—­a most powerful one.  Besides, suppose you were to meet with some extraordinary help, by which a young man makes his way promptly either in business or in the public employ, where could you find the money to live and clothe yourself during the time that you are learning your employment?”

Here the mother wandered, like other women, into wordy lamentation:  What should she do now to feed the family, deprived of the benefits Moreau’s stewardship had enabled him to send her from Presles?  Oscar had overthrown his benefactor’s prosperity!  As commerce and a government clerkship were now impossible, there remained only the professions of notary and lawyer, either barristers or solicitors, and sheriffs.  But for those he must study at least three years, and pay considerable sums for entrance fees, examinations, certificates, and diplomas; and here again the question of maintenance presented itself.

“Oscar,” she said, in conclusion, “in you I had put all my pride, all my life.  In accepting for myself an unhappy old age, I fastened my eyes on you; I saw you with the prospect of a fine career, and I imagined you succeeding in it.  That thought, that hope, gave me courage to face the privations I have endured for six years in order to carry you through school, where you have cost me, in spite of the scholarship, between seven and eight hundred francs a year.  Now that my hope is vanishing, your future terrifies me.  I cannot take one penny from Monsieur Clapart’s salary for my son.  What can you do?  You are not strong enough to mathematics to enter any of the technical schools; and, besides, where could I get the three thousand francs board-money which they extract?  This is life as it is, my child.  You are eighteen, you are strong.  Enlist in the army; it is your only means, that I can see, to earn your bread.”

Oscar knew as yet nothing whatever of life.  Like all children who have been kept from a knowledge of the trials and poverty of the home, he was ignorant of the necessity of earning his living.  The word “commerce” presented no idea whatever to his mind; “public employment” said almost as little, for he saw no results of it.  He listened, therefore, with a submissive air, which he tried to