Renée, who wished to consider the part she played as a mother and a schoolmistress a serious one, was delighted with her pupil. It is true that she neglected nothing to perfect his education. She was then passing through a period full of mortification and tears; a lover had abandoned her, in scandalous style in sight of all Paris, to attach himself to the Duchess de Sternich. She dreamt that Maxime would be her consolation, she made herself older, she endeavoured to be maternal, and became the most eccentric mentor that can be imagined. Maxime's tilbury often remained at home; it was Renée who came to fetch the collegian with her roomy carriage. They hid the brown portfolio under the cushion, and went to the Bois de Boulogne then in its freshness. She there gave him a course of lectures on high elegance. She pointed out to him the upper ten of imperial Paris, fat and happy, still ecstasied by the warm touch which changed the starvelings and pigs of the day before into great lords and millionaires puffing and fainting under the weight of their cash boxes. But the youngster particularly questioned her about women, and as she was very familiar with him, she gave him precise particulars: Madame de Guende was stupid but admirably formed; the wealthy Countess Vanska had been a street singer before she married a Pole who was said to beat her; as for the Marchioness d'Espanet and Suzanne Haffner they were inseparable; and although they were Renée's intimate friends, she added--compressing her lips as if to prevent herself from saying any more--that some very nasty stories were told about them; beautiful Madame de Lauwerens was also a very compromising woman, but she had such pretty eyes, and after all everyone knew that she herself was irreproachable, although somewhat too much mixed up in the intrigues of the poor little women who frequented her, Madame Daste, Madame Teissière and the Baroness de Meinhold. Maxime wished to have the ladies' portraits; and with them he adorned an album which remained on the drawing-room table. With that vicious artfulness which was his predominant characteristic he tried to embarrass his stepmother by asking her for particulars concerning the fast women, at the same time pretending to take them for women of society. Renée, becoming moral and serious, said that they were frightful creatures and that he ought to carefully avoid them; then forgetting herself she talked about them as if they were people whom she had known intimately. One of the youngster's great delights was to set her talking about the Duchess de Sternich. Each time that her carriage passed theirs in the Bois, he never missed naming the duchess with cruel artfulness and an under glance which proved that he was acquainted with Renée's last adventure. Then she in a harsh voice tore her rival to pieces; how old she was looking, poor woman, she painted her face, she had lovers hidden in all her cupboards, she had given