s which the Old World no longer
knows.... It is for that reason that there are professions in which we
have no rivals."

"But see!" replied Lydia, "you have taken Alba for a Bostonian or a New
Yorker, and you have made her pose so long that she is pale. She must
have a change. Come with me, dear, I will show you the costume they have
sent me from Paris, and which I shall wear this afternoon to the garden
party at the English embassy."

She forced Alba Steno to rise from the armchair as she uttered those
words, then she entwined her arms about her waist to draw her away and
kissed her. Ah, if ever a caress merited being compared to the hideous
flattery of Iscariot, it was that, and the young girl might have replied
with the sublime words: "Friend, why hast thou betrayed me by a kiss?"
Alas! She believed in it, in the sincerity of that proof of affection,
and she returned her false friend's kiss with a gratitude which did not
soften that heart saturated with hatred, for five minutes had not passed
ere Lydia had put into execution her hideous project. Under the pretext
of reaching the liner-room more quickly, she took a servant's staircase,
which led to that lobby with the glass partition, in which was the
opening through which to look into the atelier.

"This is very strange," said she, pausing suddenly. And, pointing out to
her innocent companion the round spot, she said: "Probably some servant
who has wished to eavesdrop.--But what for? You, who are tall, look and
see how it has been done and what it looks on. If it is a hole cut
purposely, I shall discover the culprit and he shall go."

Alba obeyed the perfidious request absently, and applied her eye to the
aperture. The author of the anonymous letters had chosen her moment only
too well. As soon as the door of the studio was closed, the Countess rose
to approach Lincoln. She entwined around the young man's neck her arms,
which gleamed through the transparent sleeves of her summer gown, and she
kissed with greedy lips his eyes and mouth. Lydia, who had retained one
of the girl's hands in hers, felt that hand tremble convulsively. A
hunter who hears rustle the foliage of the thicket through which should
pass the game he is awaiting, does not experience a joy more complete.
Her snare was successful. She said to her unhappy victim:

"What ails you? How you tremble!"

And she essayed to push her away in order to put herself in her place.
Alba, whom the sight of her m