Then he would take the woman off, or, at times, go with her to join in the racket in the neighbouring room. Maxime and he shared the same shoulders; their hands met round the same waists. They called to one another on the divans, and repeated to each other, aloud, the confidential statements which the women had whispered in their ears. And they carried their good fellowship so far as to conspire together to carry off from the gathering the blonde or brunette which one or the other of them had chosen.
They were well known at Mabille. They went there arm in arm, after some dainty dinner, strolled round the garden, nodding to the women, and tossing them a remark as they passed by. They laughed aloud, without unlocking their arms, and came to each other's assistance whenever business was discussed. The father, who was very expert on this point, negotiated his son's love affairs advantageously. At times they sat down and drank with a party of girls. Then they changed their table or resumed their stroll. And they were seen till midnight with their arms always linked like a couple of chums, following the skirts along the yellow pathways under the glaring flame of the gas jets.
When they returned home they brought with them, from out-of-doors, in their coats, a dash of the women they had just left. Their loose attitudes, and the after-part of certain suggestive remarks and low gestures, made the flat in the Rue de Rivoli seem like a fast woman's lodging. The gentle wanton way in which the father gave his hand to his son, of itself proclaimed whence they came. It was in this atmosphere that Renée inhaled her sensual caprices and longings. She chaffed them nervously:
"Where can you have come from?" she would say to them. "You smell of tobacco and musk. It's certain that I shall have a headache."
And indeed, the strange smell profoundly disturbed her. It was the regular perfume of this singular domestic hearth.
However, Maxime was smitten with a fine passion for little Sylvia. He bored his stepmother with this girl during several months. Renée soon knew her from one end to the other, from the soles of her feet to the tip of her hair. She had a bluish mark on the hip; nothing could be more adorable than her knees; and there was this peculiarity about her shoulders, that only the left one was dimpled. Maxime evinced some maliciousness in devoting his drives with Renée to the description of his mistress's perfections. One evening, on returning from the Bois, Renée's carriage and Sylvia's were caught in a block, and had to draw up, side by side, in the Champs-Elysées. The two women eyed each other with acute curiosity, while Maxime, whom this critical situation delighted, tittered on the quiet. As his stepmother preserved gloomy silence when the carriage began to roll on again he thought she was in the sulks, and expected one of those maternal scenes, one of those strange scoldings with which she still, at times, occupied her moments of lassitude.
"Do you know that person's jeweller?" she abruptly asked him, at the moment when they reached the Place de la Concorde.
"Alas, yes!" he answered with a smile; "I owe him ten thousand francs—Why do you ask me that?"
"For nothing."
Then after a fresh silence: