n 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 Madame Gorka, amicably surprised for Chapron and
Madame Maitland, familiar and confiding for her old friend, as she called
the Baron. She was evidently the soul of the small party, for her mere
presence seemed to have caused animation to sparkle in every eye.

All talked at once, and she replied, as they walked toward the carriages,
which waited in a court of honor capable of holding seventy gala
chariots. One after the other these carriages advanced. The horses pawed
the ground; the harnesses shone; the footmen and coachmen were dressed in
perfect liveries; the porter of the Palais Castagna, with his long
redingote, on the buttons of which were the symbolical chestnuts of the
family, had beneath his laced hat such a dignified bearing that Julien
suddenly found it absurd to have imagined an impassioned drama in
connection with such people. The last one left, while watching the others
depart, he once more experienced the sensation so common to those who are
familiar with the worst side of the splendor of society and who perceive
in them the moral misery and ironical gayety.

"You are becoming a great simpleton, my friend, Dorsenne," said he,
seating himself more democratically in one of those open cabs called in
Rome a botte. "To fear a tragical adventure for the woman who is mistress
of herself to such a degree is something like casting one's self into the
water to prevent a