Baron Justus could not resist these. He raised his glass and
called Dorsenne to show him a curious armchair, the carving of a cartel,
the embroidery on some material. One glance sufficed for him to judge....
If the novelist had been capable of observing, he would have perceived in
the detailed knowledge the banker had of the catalogue the trace of a
study too deep not to accord with some mysterious project.

"There are treasures here," said he. "See these two Chinese vases with
convex lids, with the orange ground decorated with gilding. Those are
pieces no longer made in China. It is a lost art. And this tete-a-tete
decorated with flowers; and this pluvial cope in this case. What a
marvel! It is as good as the one of Pius Second, which was at Pienza and
which has been stolen. I could have bought it at one time for fifteen
hundred francs. It is worth fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, all of
that. Here is some faience. It was brought from Spain when Cardinal
Castagna came from Madrid, when he took the place of Pius Fifth as
sponsor of Infanta Isabella. Ah, what treasures! But you go like the
wind," he added, "and perhaps it is better, for I would stop, and
Cavalier Fossati, the auctioneer, to whom those terrible creditors of
Peppino have given charge of the sale, has spies everywhere. You notice
an object, you are marked as a solid man, as they say in Germany. You are
noted. I shall be down on his list. I have been caught by him enough. Ha!
He is a very shrewd man! But come, I see the ladies. We should have
remembered that they were here," and smiling--but at whom?--at Fossati,
at himself or his companion?--he made the latter read the notice hung on
the door of a transversal room, which bore this inscription: "Salon of
marriage-chests."

There were, indeed, ranged along the walls about fifteen of those wooden
cases painted and carved, of those 'cassoni' in which it was the fashion,
in grand Italian families, to keep the trousseaux destined for the
brides. Those of the Castagnas proved, by their escutcheons, what
alliances the last of the grand-nephews of Urban VII, the actual Prince
d'Ardea, entered into. Three very elegant ladies were examining the
chests; in them Dorsenne recognized at once fair and delicate Alba Steno,
Madame Gorka, with her tall form, her fair hair, too, and her strong
English profile, and pretty Madame Maitland, with her olive complexion,
who did not seem to have inherited any more negro blood than