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: "She had a very pretty bracelet, the one on the left wrist. I should have liked to see it close to." They reached home. She said no more on the matter then. Only on the following day, just as Maxime and his father were going out together, she took the young fellow aside, and spoke to him in an undertone, with an embarrassed air, and a pretty smile which courted indulgence. He seemed surprised and went off, laughing in his wicked way. In the evening he brought Sylvia's bracelet which his stepmother had begged him to show her. "There's what you wanted," said he. "One would thieve for your sake, pretty mamma." "She didn't see you take it?" asked Renée who was eagerly examining the bracelet. "I don't think so--She wore it yesterday, so she certainly wouldn't put it on to-day." Meantime the young woman approached the window. She had put the bracelet on and she held her wrist somewhat raised slowly turning it round, delighted and repeating: "Oh! very pretty, very pretty. There are only the emeralds that don't quite please me." At this moment Saccard came in, and as she still held her wrist up in the white light from the window: "Hallo!" he cried in astonishment, "Sylvia's bracelet!" "You know this jewel?" said she, more embarrassed than he was and not knowing what to do with her arm. He had recovered himself, and he threatened his son with his finger, muttering: "That scamp always has some forbidden fruit in his pockets! One of these days he will bring us the lady's arm as well as her bracelet." "Why! it isn't my doing," replied Maxime with cunning cowardice. "It's Renée who wanted to see it."