"In the hair, upon this smiling head, we will place the dreamy butterfly of Psyche with wings of changeful blue."
But on other occasions, inspiration was sluggish. The illustrious Worms summoned it in vain and concentrated his faculties to no purpose. He tortured his eyebrows, turned livid, took his poor head, which he wagged in despair, between his hands, and conquered, throwing himself into an arm-chair:
"No," he would mutter in a sorrowful voice, "no, not to-day—it isn't possible—These ladies presume too much. The source is dried up."
And he would turn Renée out of doors, repeating:
"Impossible, impossible, dear madame, you must call again another day. I'm not in the vein to deal with your style this morning."
The fine education that Maxime received had a first result. At seventeen the youngster seduced his stepmother's maid. The worst of the affair was that the girl found herself in the family way. It was necessary to send her into the country with the kid and make her a small allowance. Renée was terribly vexed by this adventure. Saccard occupied himself about it merely to settle the pecuniary side of the question; but the young woman roundly scolded her pupil. To think he should compromise himself with such a girl when she wanted to make a gentleman of him! What a ridiculous, shameful beginning, what a disgraceful prank! If he had at least only launched forth with one of those ladies!
"Oh! quite so," he answered quietly, "if your dear friend Suzanne had only chosen she could have gone into the country instead of the maid."
"Oh! you naughty fellow," muttered Renée, disarmed and enlivened by the idea of seeing Suzanne retire into the country with an allowance of twelve hundred francs a year.
Then a funnier thought occurred to her, and forgetting her part as an irritated mother, bursting into pearly laughter which she restrained with her fingers, she stammered, glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes:
"I say, how angry Adeline would have been with you, and what a scene she would have had with her—"