Maxime remained at the college of Plassans until the holidays of 1854. He was thirteen years and a few months old and had just passed through the fifth class. It was then that his father decided that he should come to Paris, reflecting that a son of Maxime's age would consolidate his position and establish him for good in the part he played as a rich and serious re-married widower. When he mentioned his plan to Renée, towards whom he prided himself upon being extremely gallant, she negligently answered:
"Quite so, let the little fellow come. He will amuse us a bit. One is bored to death of a morning."
The little fellow arrived a week afterwards. He was already a tall, spare urchin with an effeminate face, a delicate, wide-awake look, and pale flaxen hair. But how he was rigged out; good heavens! Cropped to the ears, with his hair so short that the whiteness of his skull was barely covered with a slight shadow, he moreover wore a pair of trousers too short for his legs, carter's shoes, and a frightfully threadbare tunic which was much too full and made him almost look hunchbacked. Thus accoutred, surprised by the new things he saw, he looked around him, not at all timidly but with the savage, cunning air of a precocious child who hesitates about trusting himself to anyone at once.
A servant had just brought him from the railway station, and he was in the large drawing-room, delighted with the gilding of the furniture and the ceiling, completely happy at sight of this luxury amid which he was going to live, when Renée, returning from her tailor's, swept in like a gust of wind. She threw off her hat and the white burnous which she had placed upon her shoulders to shield her from the cold, which was already keen; and she appeared before Maxime—stupefied with admiration—in all the glow of her marvellous costume.
The child thought she was disguised. Over a delicious skirt of blue faille with deep flounces, she wore a kind of garde française habit in pale grey silk. The lappets of the habit, lined with blue satin of a deeper shade than the faille of the skirt, were coquettishly caught up and secured with bows of ribbon; the cuffs of the tight sleeves, the broad facings of the bodice expanded on either side trimmed with the same satin. And, as a supreme seasoning, as a bold stroke of eccentricity, large buttons imitating sapphires, and fastened on blue rosettes, adorned the front of the habit in a double row. It was at once ugly and adorable.
RENÉE AND MAXIME MEETING FOR THE FIRST TIME.
As soon as Renée perceived Maxime, "It's the little fellow, isn't it?" she asked of the servant; she was surprised to find him as tall as herself.
The child was eating her with his eyes. This lady, with so white a skin, whose bosom could be seen through a gap of her plaited chemisette, this sudden and charming apparition with her hair raised high on her head, her gloved slender hands and her little masculine boots with pointed heels, delighted him; she seemed to be the good fairy of this warm gilded room. He began to smile, and he was just awkward enough in manner to retain his urchin-like gracefulness.