ou?"

"I preoccupied?" replied Dorsenne. "You are mistaken. There is
absolutely nothing, I assure you." It was impossible to lie with more
apparent awkwardness, and if any one merited the scorn of Baron Hafner,
it was he. Hardly had Madame Gorka spoken, when he had, with the
rapidity of men of vivid imagination, seen Countess Steno and Maitland
surprised by Gorka, at that very moment, in some place of rendezvous,
and that surprise followed by a challenge, perhaps an immediate murder.
And, as Alba continued to laugh merrily, his presentiment of her sad
fate became so vivid that his face actually clouded over. He felt
impelled to ascertain, when she questioned him, how great a friendship
she bore him. But his effort to hide his emotion rendered his voice so
harsh that the young girl resumed:

"I have vexed you by my questioning?"

"Not the least in the world," he replied, without being able to find a
word of friendship. He felt at that moment incapable of talking, as
they usually did, in that tone of familiarity, partly mocking, partly
sentimental, and he added: "I simply think this exposition somewhat
melancholy, that is all." And, with a smile, "But we shall lose the
opportunity of having it shown us by our incomparable cicerone," and
he obliged her, by quickening her pace, to rejoin the group piloted by
Hafner through the magnificence of the almost deserted apartment.

"See," said the former broker of Berlin and of Paris, now an enlightened
amateur--"see, how that charlatan of a Fossati has taken care not to
increase the number of trinkets now that we are in the reception-rooms.
These armchairs seem to await invited guests. They are known. They have
been illustrated in a magazine of decorative art in Paris. And that
dining-room through that door, with all the silver on the table, would
you not think a fete had been prepared?"

"Baron," said Madame Gorka, "look at this material; it is of the
eighteenth century, is it not?"

"Baron," asked Madame Maitland, "is this cup with the lid old Vienna or
Capadimonte?"

"Baron," said Florent Chapron, "is this armor of Florentine or Milanese
workmanship?"

The eyeglass was raised to the Baron's thin nose, his small eyes
glittered, his lips were pursed up, and he replied, in words as exact
as if he had studied all the details of the catalogue verbatim. Their
thanks were soon followed by many other questions, in which two voices
alone did not join, that of Alba Steno and th