“I really must be going,” he said several times.

He had made up his mind not to stay. Renée wouldn’t have wanted him to in any case. Both were thinking, both had said that they were now nothing more than good friends. When Maxime finally shook the young woman’s hand and was about to leave the room, she stopped him for a moment and spoke to him about his father, whom she praised lavishly. “I feel too much remorse, you see. I’m glad this happened. . . . You don’t know your father. I’ve been surprised to discover how kind he is, how unselfish. The poor man has a lot to worry about right now.”

Maxime stared at the toes of his boots with an embarrassed look and said nothing. She persisted. “As long as he stayed out of my room, I didn’t care. But then. . . . When I saw him here, affectionate, bringing me money that he must have scraped together all over Paris, ruining himself for me without complaint, I felt ill. . . . If you only knew how carefully he has kept an eye on my interests.”

The young man walked softly back toward the fireplace and leaned against it. He was still embarrassed, his head bowed, yet a smile had begun to curl his lips.

“Yes,” he muttered, “my father is very clever when it comes to keeping an eye on people’s interests.”

The tone of his voice surprised Renée. She looked at him, and he, as if to defend himself, said, “Oh, what do I know? . . . I’m just saying that my father is a shrewd man.”

“You would be wrong to speak ill of him,” she continued. “Your judgment is obviously rather superficial. . . . If I told you his troubles, if I repeated to you what he confided to me just this evening, you’d see that people are wrong about him when they say that money is all he cares about.”

Maxime could not suppress a shrug. He interrupted his stepmother with an ironical laugh.

“Believe me, I know him, I know him quite well. . . . He must have told you some awfully good stories. Tell me what he said.”

His mocking tone wounded her. So she praised her husband all the more, said that he was a great man, and discussed the Charonne business—all those shady maneuvers of which she had understood nothing—as if Saccard had rescued her from some catastrophe, thereby revealing his intelligence and kindness. She added that she would be signing the purchase-and-sale agreement the next day and that if it really did end in disaster, she would accept that disaster as punishment for her sins. Maxime let her talk, snickering and stealing glances at her as she spoke. Then in a half-whisper he said, “Yes, indeed, that’s exactly right.”

Then he placed his hand on Renée’s shoulder and said in a somewhat louder voice, “Thank you, my dear, but I knew that story already. . . . You really are a soft touch.”

Once again he made a move as if to leave. He was itching to tell all. She had irritated him with her praise of her husband, and he forgot that he had promised himself that he would avoid unpleasantness by biting his tongue.

“What! What do you mean?” she asked.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, what I mean is that my father has been pulling the wool over your eyes as neatly as can be. . . . I feel sorry for you. You’re such a simpleton.”

Then he told her in his cowardly, cunning way what he had heard at Laure’s, taking secret pleasure at wallowing in such vileness. In his eyes he was inflicting revenge for whatever vague insult he had suffered. His crass character took rapturous delight in slander of this sort, in cruel gossip overheard from behind a curtain. He spared Renée nothing: neither the money her husband had lent her at usurious rates nor the sum he intended to steal from her with the help of ridiculous fairy tales fit only for putting children to sleep. Renée listened, looking quite livid, her lips pinched. Standing in front of the fireplace, she bowed her head slightly and gazed at the fire. Her night-dress, the chemise that Maxime had warmed at the hearth, fell open, revealing a whiteness as motionless as a statue.

“I’m telling you all this,” Maxime concluded, “so that you don’t look like a fool. . . . But you would be wrong to hold a grudge against my father. He’s not mean. He has his faults, just like everybody else. . . . Till tomorrow, eh?”

He made a move toward the door. With a brusque motion Renée stopped him.

“Stay!” she imperiously commanded.

Then she seized him, drew him toward her, and practically sat him on her lap in front of the fire, whereupon she kissed him on the lips, saying, “What would be the point of holding back now? . . . You have no idea, do you? that since yesterday when you tried to break off with me, I’ve been out of my mind. I’ve been like an imbecile. Tonight, at the ball, I was in a fog. Because I can’t live without you. When you leave, I’m done for. . . . Don’t laugh, I’m telling you how I feel.”

She looked at him with infinite longing, as if she hadn’t seen him for ages.

“You hit on the right word: I was a simpleton. Your father could have made me see stars in broad daylight today. What did I know? While he was telling me his fairy tale, all I heard was a loud hum, and I was so overwhelmed that if he’d wanted, he could have made me get down on my knees to sign his silly papers. And I thought I was feeling remorse! . . . Yes, I was that big a fool.”

She burst out laughing, and glimmers of madness shone in her eyes. Holding her lover even tighter than before, she continued. “Have we sinned, you and I? We love each other, and we’ve enjoyed each other just as we pleased. Everybody’s like that nowadays, aren’t they? . . . Your father seldom holds back. He loves money and takes it where he finds it. He’s right, it sets my mind at ease. . . . So I won’t sign anything, and you’ll come back night after night. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to anymore, you know, because of what I told you. . . . But since you don’t care. . . . In any case, I’ll close my door to him now. You see that, don’t you?”

She got up and lit the nightlight. Maxime hesitated, suddenly plunged into despair. He’d been a fool, he realized, and he came down hard on himself for having said too much. How could he announce his marriage now? It was his own fault. He had broken it off, there had been no need to return to the bedroom and above all no need to prove to Renée that her husband was swindling her. What made him even angrier with himself was that he was no longer sure what emotion he’d just given in to. But if he considered even for a moment being brutal a second time and walking out, the sight of Renée as she let her slippers fall filled him with invincible cowardice. He was afraid. He stayed.

The next day, when Saccard came for his wife’s signature on the purchase-and-sale agreement, she calmly told him that she had thought it over and changed her mind. Beyond that she gave no hint of her reasons. She had sworn to bite her tongue, since she had no wish to make trouble for herself and was eager to enjoy the resumption of her affair in peace. The Charonne business would have to play itself out. Her refusal to sign was a simple act of vengeance. About the rest she couldn’t have cared less. Saccard came close to losing his temper. His whole dream was collapsing around him. His other schemes were going from bad to worse. He was coming to the end of his tether, and only a miraculous balancing act kept him on his feet. That very morning he hadn’t been able to pay what he owed the baker, yet he was still planning a splendid party for Mid-Lent Thursday. Renée’s refusal made him feel the white rage of a man in his prime prevented from going about his business by the whim of a child. With the purchase-and-sale agreement in his pocket, he had planned to raise cash while awaiting payment of the indemnity. Later, when he had calmed down a little and his mind had cleared, he found his wife’s sudden change of mind puzzling. Surely she had taken advice from someone. He suspected a lover. His suspicions were so keen, in fact, that he hastened to his sister’s to question her, to find out if she knew anything about Renée’s secret life. Sidonie was full of spleen. She had not forgiven her sister-in-law for her refusal to see M. de Saffré. So when she grasped from her brother’s questions that he was accusing his wife of having a lover, she blurted out that she was certain of it and offered to spy on “the turtledoves” herself. She’d show that stuck-up sister-in-law of hers what kind of woman she was dealing with. As a rule Saccard did not seek to know disagreeable truths. But now his interests were at stake, and nothing else could have forced him to open eyes he otherwise kept discreetly shut. He accepted his sister’s offer.