, by the energy of
will in refinement, a trait so marked in the Anglo-Saxons of the New
World when they like Europe, instead of detesting it. For the time
being, the longing for refinement seemed reduced to the passionate
inhalations of that divine, fair rose of love which was Madame Steno,
a rose almost too full-blown, and which the autumn of forty years had
begun to fade. But she was still charming. And how little Maitland
heeded the fact that his wife was in the room near by, the windows of
which cast forth a light which caused to stand out more prominently the
shadow of the voluptuous terrace! He held his mistress's hand within his
own, but abandoned it when he perceived Dorsenne, who took particular
pains to move a chair noisily on approaching the couple, and to say, in
a loud voice, with a merry laugh:

"I should have made a poor gallant abbe of the last century, for at
night I can really see nothing. If your cigarette had not served me as a
beacon-light I should have run against the balustrade."

"Ah, it is you, Dorsenne," replied Madame Steno, with a sharpness
contrary to her habitual amiability, which proved to the novelist that
first of all he was the "inconvenient third" of the classical comedies,
then that Hafner had reported his imprudent remarks of the day before.

"So much the better," thought he, "I shall have forewarned her. On
reflection she will be pleased. It is true that at this moment there is
no question of reflection." As he said those words to himself, he talked
aloud of the temperature of the day, of the probabilities of the weather
for the morrow, of Ardea's good-humor. He made, indeed, twenty trifling
remarks, in order to manage to leave the terrace and to leave the
lovers to their tete-a-tete, without causing his withdrawal to become
noticeable by indiscreet haste, as disagreeable as suggestive.

"When may we come to your atelier to see the portrait finished,
Maitland?" he asked, still standing, in order the better to manage his
retreat.

"Finished?" exclaimed the Countess, who added, employing a diminutive
which she had used for several weeks: "Do you then not know that Linco
has again effaced the head?"

"Not the entire head," said the painter, "but the face is to be
done over. You remember, Dorsenne, those two canvases by Pier delta
Francesca, which are at Florence, Duc Federigo d'Urbino and his wife
Battista Sforza. Did you not see them in the same room with La Calomnie
by Bottice