In the morning she slept a little, and when she awoke she thought she was ill. She had the curtains drawn, spoke to her doctor of nausea and headache, and for a couple of days actually refused to go out. And as she pretended that she was being besieged, she forbade her door. Maxime came and knocked at it fruitlessly. He did not sleep in the house, as he preferred to be able to dispose freely of his rooms; indeed, he led the most nomadic life in the world, lodging in his father's new houses, selecting whatever floor suited him, and moving every month, often out of sheer caprice, and at times to make room for serious tenants. He dried the walls in the company of some mistress. Accustomed to his stepmother's whims, he feigned great compassion for her, and went upstairs four times a-day to inquire after her, with a most distressed look, though, in point of fact, he merely wished to tease her. On the third day he found her in the little drawing-room, rosy and smiling, and with a calm and rested look. "Well, did you amuse yourself very much with Céleste?" he asked her, alluding to the long tête-à-tête she had had with her maid. "Yes," she answered, "she is a very useful girl. She always has such cold hands; she placed them on my forehead, and soothed my poor head a little." "But that girl's a remedy then!" cried the young fellow. "If I ever have the misfortune to fall in love, you'll lend her to me, eh? so that she may place her two hands on my heart." They joked, and went for their usual drive to the Bois. A fortnight passed by. Renée had thrown herself more madly than ever into her life of visits and balls; her head seemed to have turned once more, she no longer complained of lassitude and disgust. Still, one might have thought that she had committed some secret sin, which she did not speak of, but which she confessed by a more strongly marked contempt for herself and by increased depravity in her whims as a fashionable woman. One evening she confessed to Maxime that she longed to go to a ball which Blanche Müller, an actress in vogue, meant to give to the princesses of the footlights and the queens of the fast world. This avowal surprised and embarrassed even the young man, and yet he was not particularly scrupulous. He tried to catechise his stepmother: really, that wasn't her place; besides, she would see nothing very funny there; and then, if she were recognised, it would cause a scandal. She answered all these good reasons with clasped hands, supplicating, and smiling. "Come, my little Maxime, be kind. I'm determined on it. I will put on a very dark domino; we will only pass through the rooms." Maxime always ended by giving way, and would have taken his stepmother to all the disreputable places in Paris had she but begged him ever so little to do so. So he consented to escort her to Blanche Müller's ball, whereupon she clapped her hands like a child to whom an unhoped-for holiday is granted.