"Oh, no!" hastily replied the boy's mother, with an appearance of great
gayety, assumed perhaps from an unconscious desire to hide certain covert
fears. "Only the doctor wants him to take exercise, and it is so fine
this morning that we are going off on quite an expedition."

"Don't go along the quays," said Beauchene again. "Go up towards the
Invalides. He'll have much stiffer marching to do when he's a soldier."

Then, the mother and the child having taken themselves off, he went back
into the works with Mathieu, adding in his triumphant way: "That
youngster, you know, is as strong as an oak. But women are always so
nervous. For my part, I'm quite easy in mind about him, as you can see."
And with a laugh he concluded: "When one has but one son, he keeps him."

That same day, about an hour later, a terrible dispute which broke out
between old Moineaud's daughters, Norine and Euphrasie, threw the factory
into a state of commotion. Norine's intrigue with Beauchene had ended in
the usual way. He had soon tired of the girl and betaken himself to some
other passing fancy, leaving her to her tears, her shame, and all the
consequences of her fault; for although it had hitherto been possible for
her to conceal her condition from her parents, she was unable to deceive
her sister, who was her constant companion. The two girls were always
bickering, and Norine had for some time lived in dread of scandal and
exposure. And that day the trouble came to a climax, beginning with a
trivial dispute about a bit of glass-paper in the workroom, then
developing into a furious exchange of coarse, insulting language, and
culminating in a frantic outburst from Euphrasie, who shrieked to the
assembled work-girls all that she knew about her sister.