"Do you recollect the day when I came to Paris?" said Maxime; "you wore a funny costume; and I traced an angle on your bosom with my finger, and I advised you to open your dress, in a point. I felt your skin under your chemisette, and my finger embedded itself a little. It was very nice." Renée laughed, kissing him and murmuring: "You were already awfully vicious. How you did amuse us at Worms's--do you recollect? We used to call you 'our little man.' I always believed that fat Suzanne would have readily yielded to you, if the marchioness hadn't watched her with such furious eyes." "Ah! yes, we had some good laughs," muttered the young fellow. "The photographic album, eh? And all the rest, our rambles through Paris, our snacks at the pastry cook's on the Boulevard; those little strawberry tarts which you liked so much, you know? For myself I shall always remember the afternoon when you related to me Adeline's adventure at the convent when she wrote letters to Suzanne, signing herself 'Arthur d'Espanet,' like a man, and proposing to carry her off." The lovers again grew merry over this good story, and then Maxime continued in his coaxing voice: "When you came to fetch me at the college in your carriage, we must have looked funny both of us. I was so small that I disappeared under your skirts." "Yes, yes," she stammered, quivering, and drawing the young fellow towards her, "it was very nice, as you say. We loved each other without knowing it, eh? I realised it before you did. The other day, on returning from the Bois, my leg rubbed against yours, and I started. But you didn't notice anything, eh? You didn't think of me?" "Oh, yes, I did," he replied, a little embarrassed. "Only I didn't know, you understand--I didn't dare--" He lied. The idea of possessing Renée had never plainly occurred to him. He had rubbed up against her with all his vice, without really desiring her. He was too feeble for such an effort. He accepted Renée because she imposed herself upon him, and he had glided to her couch without willing or foreseeing it. When he had rolled there, however, he remained there, because it was warm, and because he habitually forgot himself at the bottom of all the holes into which he fell. At the outset he even tasted some satisfactions of self-love. She was the first married woman that he had possessed. He did not reflect that her husband was his father.