The following Sunday, then, spruced up in his best-what could have possessed the haberdasher to induce him to buy a pair of red dog-skin gloves?  He soon saw that they were too new and too startling for the rest of his costume—­Amedee went up to the first floor of a fine house on the Faubourg St. Honore and rang gently at the door on the left.  A young and pretty maid—­one of those brunettes who have a waist that one can clasp in both hands, and a suspicion of a moustache—­opened the door and ushered the young man into a drawing-room furnished in a simple but luxurious manner.  Maurice was alone, standing with his back to the fire, in the attitude of master of the house.  He received his friend with warm demonstrations of pleasure.  Amedee’s eyes were at once attracted by the portrait of a handsome lieutenant of artillery, dressed in the regimental coat, with long skirts, of 1845, and wearing a sword-belt fastened by two lion’s heads.  This officer, in parade costume, was painted in the midst of a desert, seated under a palm-tree.

“That is my father,” said Maurice.  “Do I not resemble him?”

The resemblance was really striking.  The same warm, pleasant smile, and even the same blond curls.  Amedee was admiring it when a voice repeated behind him, like an echo: 

“Maurice resembles him, does he not?”

It was Madame Roger who had quietly entered.  When Amedee saw this stately lady in mourning, with a Roman profile, and clear, white complexion, who threw such an earnest glance at her son, then at her husband’s portrait, Amedee comprehended that Maurice was his mother’s idol, and, moved by the sight of the widow, who would have been beautiful but for her gray hair and eyelids, red from so much weeping, he stammered a few words of thanks for the invitation to dinner.

“My son has told me,” said she, “that you are the one among all his comrades that he cares for most.  I know what affection you have shown him.  I am the one who should thank you, Monsieur Amedee.”

They seated themselves and talked; every few moments these words were spoken by Madame Roger with an accent of pride and tenderness, “My son . . . . my son Maurice.”  Amedee realized how pleasant his friend’s life must be with such a good mother, and he could not help comparing his own sad childhood, recalling above all things the lugubrious evening repasts, when, for several years now, he had buried his nose in his plate so as not to see his father’s drunken eyes always fastened upon him as if to ask for his pardon.

Maurice let his mother praise him for a few moments, looking at her with a pleasant smile which became a trifle saddened.  Finally he interrupted her: 

“It is granted, mamma, that I am a perfect phoenix,” and he gayly embraced her.