One day (she was then thirty-five) her son aged fifteen, fell ill.
He took to his bed without any one being able to determine the cause or nature of his illness.
His tutor, a priest, watched beside him and hardly ever left him, while Mme. Hermet came morning and evening to inquire how he was.
She would come into the room in the morning in her night wrapper, smiling, all powdered and perfumed, and would ask as she entered the door:
“Well, George, are you better?”
The big boy, his face red, swollen and showing the ravages of fever, would reply:
“Yes, little mother, a little better.”
She would stay in the room a few seconds, look at the bottles of medicine, and purse her lips as if she were saying “phew,” and then would suddenly exclaim: “Oh, I forgot something very important,” and would run out of the room leaving behind her a fragrance of choice toilet perfumes.
In the evening she would appear in a decollete dress, in a still greater hurry, for she was always late, and she had just time to inquire:
“Well, what does the doctor say?”