proving the ignorance of Madame Gorka on
the subject of the husband's return--that frightful and irresistible
evocation in a clandestine chamber, suddenly deluged with blood, was
banished by the simplest event. The six visitors exchanged their
last impressions on the melancholy and magnificence of the Castagna
apartments, and they ended by descending the grand staircase with the
pillars, through the windows of which staircase smiled beneath the
scorching sun the small garden which Dorsenne had compared to a face.
The young man walked a little in advance, beside Alba Steno, whom he now
tried, but in vain, to cheer. Suddenly, at the last turn of the broad
steps which tempered the decline gradually, her face brightened with
surprise and pleasure. She uttered a slight cry and said: "There is my
mother!" And Julien saw the Madame Steno, whom he had seen, in an access
of almost delirious anxiety, surprised, assassinated by a betrayed
lover. She was standing upon the gray and black mosaic of the peristyle,
dressed in the most charming morning toilette. Her golden hair was
gathered up under a large hat of flowers, over which was a white veil;
her hand toyed with the silver handle of a white parasol, and in the
reflection of that whiteness, with her clear, fair complexion, with her
lovely blue eyes in which sparkled passion and intelligence, with her
faultless teeth which gleamed when she smiled, with her form still
slender notwithstanding the fulness of her bust, she seemed to be a
creature so youthful, so vigorous, so little touched by age that a
stranger would never have taken her to be the mother of the tall young
girl who was already beside her and who said to her--

"What imprudence! Ill as you were this morning, to go out in this sun.
Why did you do so?"

"To fetch you and to take you home!" replied the Countess gayly. "I
was ashamed of having indulged myself! I rose, and here I am. Good-day,
Dorsenne. I hope you kept your eyes open up there. A story might be
written on the Ardea affair. I will tell it to you. Good-day, Maud. How
kind of you to make lazy Alba exercise a little! She would have quite a
different color if she walked every morning. Goodday, Florent. Good-day,
Lydia. The master is not here? And you, old friend, what have you done
with Fanny?"

She distributed these simple "good-days" with a grace so delicate, a
smile so rare for each one--tender for her daughter, spirituelle for the
author, grateful for Mad