said to her, with a scornful laugh, "That was the only
affront left you to offer me--to summon your servants to defend you."

"You are mistaken," she replied. "I am not afraid. I repeat you are mad,
and I simply wish to prove it to you by recalling you to the reality of
your situation.... Bid Mademoiselle Alba come down," said she to the
footman whom her ring had summoned. That phrase was the drop of cold
water which suddenly broke the furious jet of vapor. She had found the
only means of putting an end to the terrible scene. For, notwithstanding
his menace, she knew that Maud's husband always recoiled before the young
girl, the friend of his wife, of whose delicacy and sensibility he was
aware.

Gorka was capable of the most dangerous and most cruel deeds, in an
excess of passion augmented by vanity.

He had in him a chivalrous element which would paralyze his frenzy before
Alba. As for the immorality of that combination of defence which involved
her daughter in her rupture with a vindictive lover, the Countess did not
think of that. She often said: "She is my comrade, she is my friend."....
And she thought so. To lean upon her in that critical moment was only
natural to her. In the tempest of indignation which shook Gorka, the
sudden appeal to innocent Alba appeared to him the last degree of
cynicism. During the short space of time which elapsed between the
departure of the footman and the arrival of the young girl, he only
uttered these words, repeating them as he paced the floor, while his
former mistress defied him with her bold gaze:

"I scorn you, I scorn you; ah, how I scorn you!" Then, when he heard the
door open: "We will resume our conversation, Madame."

"When you wish," replied Countess Steno, and to her daughter, who
entered, she said: "You know the carriage is to come at ten minutes to
eleven, and it is now the quarter. Are you ready?"

"You can see," replied the young girl, displaying her pearl-gray gloves,
which she was just buttoning, while on her head a large hat of black
tulle made a dark and transparent aureole around her fair head. Her
delicate bust was displayed to advantage in the corsage Maitland had
chosen for her portrait, a sort of cuirass of a dark-blue material,
finished at the neck and wrists with bands of velvet of a darker shade.
The fine lines of cuffs and a collar gave to that pure face a grace of
youth younger than her age.

She had evidently come at her mother's call, with the