Renée called him "Mademoiselle," without knowing that six months earlier she would have spoken the truth. To her he seemed very obedient, very loving, and indeed his caresses often made her ill-at-ease. He had a manner of kissing that heated her skin. But what delighted her was his artfulness; he was exceedingly funny and bold, already speaking of women with a smile and holding his own against Renée's friends, dear Adeline who had just married M. d'Espanet, and fat Suzanne, married quite recently to the great manufacturer Haffner. When he was fourteen he had a passion for the latter. He had taken his stepmother into his confidence and she was greatly amused. "For myself I should have preferred Adeline," she said, "she's prettier." "Perhaps so," replied the urchin, "but Suzanne is ever so much fatter. I like fine women. It would be very kind of you to speak to her for me." Renée laughed. Her doll--this tall urchin with a girl's manners--seemed to her more amusing than ever since he was in love. The time came when Madame Haffner seriously had to defend herself. Moreover the ladies encouraged Maxime with their stifled laughter, their unfinished sentences, and the coquettish attitudes which they assumed in his presence. There was a touch of very aristocratic debauchery in all this. The three of them, scorched by passion amid their tumultuous life, lingered over the urchin's delightful depravity as over a novel harmless spice which tickled their palates. They let him touch their dresses, and pass his fingers over their shoulders when he followed them into the ante-room to help them on with their wrappers; they passed him along from hand to hand, laughing like lunatics when he kissed their wrists near the veins, on the spot where the skin is so soft; then they became maternal and learnedly taught him the art of being a fine gentleman and pleasing women. He was their toy, a little fellow of ingenious mechanism who kissed and courted, who had the most delightful vices in the world, but who remained a plaything, a little cardboard puppet whom they did not much fear, though just enough to quiver very agreeably at the touch of his childish hand.