The young fellow returned softly to the mantelpiece, and leant against it. He remained embarrassed, with bowed head and a smile gradually rising to his lips.
"Yes," muttered he, "my father is very skilful in watching over people's interests."
His tone of voice astonished Renée. She looked at him, and he, as if to defend himself, added:
"Oh! I know nothing. I only say that my father is a skilful man."
"You would do wrong to speak ill of him," she rejoined. "You must judge him rather superficially. If I acquainted you with all his worries, if I repeated to you what he confided to me again this evening, you would see how mistaken people are, when they think he cares for money."
Maxime could not restrain a shrug of the shoulders. He interrupted his stepmother with an ironical laugh.
"Ah, I know him, I know him well," he said. "He must have told you some very pretty things. Relate them to me."
This tone of raillery wounded her. She then enlarged upon her praises; she considered her husband quite a great man; she talked about the Charonne affair, that piece of jobbery of which she had understood nothing, as about a catastrophe in which Saccard's intelligence and kindness had been revealed to her. She added that she should sign the deed of cession on the morrow, and that if this affair were really a disaster, she accepted it in punishment for her sins. Maxime let her go on, sneering and looking at her slyly; then he said, in an undertone:
"That's it; that's just it."
And raising his voice, and settling his hand on Renée's shoulder: