"You are an artist by nature, mademoiselle."
"Ouf!" she exclaimed with a comic intonation.
A boat approached.
"Well, Renée, how is the water?" asked one of the rowers.
"Splendid, thanks, Denoisel," she replied, as she mounted the steps lowered for her.
"I was almost getting nervous for you. And Reverchon? Ah, there he is!"
Renée was the youngest daughter of a distinguished Napoleonic officer, who, at the time of the revolution of 1830, was elected deputy, and fought with all his ardour for the Liberal cause, but who subsequently, at the urging of his wife, a tyrannical conventional member of the bourgeois, retired from the world of politics and established a sugar refinery, so as to be able to provide suitably for his three children.
The first two, a boy born in 1826 and a daughter in 1827, were a disappointment to the old soldier. They were too reasonable, too "grown-up" before they were children, but in Renée, who was born after an interval of eight years, M. Mauperin found ample consolation. His heart revelled in her pranks and merry laughter, and she grew up the pet of her father, whose affection she returned with all her heart. She was now twenty; her brother Henri, serious, studious, plodding and determined to make a career, was a lawyer, and had made some reputation by his articles on statistical subjects; and Henriette, her elder sister, had found a husband in M. Davarande, whose wealth and position allowed her to devote herself to the life of empty amusement, divided mainly between long rounds of calls, the opera, and the Bois, which filled the days of the moneyed Paris bourgeoisie of that time.
Madame Mauperin, delighted with Henriette's match, was anxious to find an equally suitable partner for Renée; but the high-spirited girl had a will of her own, and seemed to take almost a pleasure in crossing her mother's transparent matrimonial schemes. Quite a number of eligible young men had been introduced to the house at La Briche--and had left it without having furthered their suit. Reverchon had now been invited with similar intentions, and Renée was no more amenable than before. While her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room after dinner.