Palace
Savorelli at two o'clock. I will speak to my friend Hafner. He will speak
to his daughter, and it will not depend upon me if you have not their
reply this evening or to-morrow morning. Is it yes? Is it no?"

"This evening? To-morrow?" exclaimed the Prince, shaking his head with a
most comical gesture. "I can not decide like that. It is an ambush! I
come to talk, to consult you."

"And on what?" asked Madame Steno, with a vivacity almost impatient. "Can
I tell you anything you do not already know? In twenty-four hours, in
forty-eight, in six months, what difference will there be, I pray you? We
must look at things as they are, however. To-morrow, the day after, the
following days, will you be less embarrassed?"

"No," said the Prince, "but--"

"There is no but," she resumed, allowing him to say no more than she had
allowed her intendant. The despotism natural to puissant personalities
scorned to be disguised in her, when there were practical decisions in
which she was to take part. "The only serious objection you made to me
when I spoke to you of this marriage six months ago was that Fanny was
not a Catholic. I know today that she has only to be asked to be
converted. So do not let us speak of that."

"No," said the Prince, "but--"

"As for Hafner," continued the Countess, "you will say he is my friend
and that I am partial, but that partiality even is an opinion. He is
precisely the father-in-law you need. Do not shake your head. He will
repair all that needs repairing in your fortune. You have been robbed, my
poor Peppino. You told me so yourself.... Become the Baron's son-in-law,
and you will have news of your robbers. I know.... There is the Baron's
origin and the suit of ten years ago with all the 'pettogolezzi' to which
it gave rise. All that has not the common meaning. The Baron began life
in a small way. He was from a family of Jewish origin--you see, I do not
deceive you--but converted two generations back, so that the story of his
change of religion since his stay in Italy is a calumny, like the rest.
He had a suit in which he was acquitted. You would not require more than
the law, would you?"

"No, but--"

"For what are you waiting, then?" concluded Madame Steno. "That it may be
too late? How about your lands?"

"Ah! let me breathe, let me fan myself," said Ardea, who, indeed, took
one of the Countess's fans from the desk. "I, who have never known in the
morning what I would do in the evenin