s brown moustache, wore an expression of disdain,
disgust, and sensuality. The shaven chin displayed a bluish shade, which
gave to the whole face a look of strength, belied by the slender and
nervous form. The heir of the Castagnas was dressed with an affectation
of the English style, peculiar to certain Italians. He wore too many
rings on his fingers, too large a bouquet in his buttonhole, and above
all he made too many gestures to allow for a moment, with his dark
complexion, of any doubt as to his nationality. It was he who, of all
the group, first perceived Julien, and he said to him, or rather called
out familiarly:

"Ah, Dorsenne! I thought you had gone away. We have not seen you at the
club for fifteen days."

"He has been working," replied Hafner, "at some new masterpiece, at a
romance which is laid in Roman society, I am sure. Mistrust him, Prince,
and you, ladies, disarm the portrayer."

"I," resumed Ardea, laughing pleasantly, "will give him notes upon
myself, if he wants them, as long as this, and I will illustrate his
romance into the bargain with photographs which I once had a rage for
taking.... See, Mademoiselle," he added, turning to Fanny, "that is how
one ruins one's self. I had a mania for the instantaneous ones. It was
very innocent, was it not? It cost me thirty thousand francs a year, for
four years."

Dorsenne had heard that it was a watchword between Peppino Ardea and his
friends to take lightly the disaster which came upon the Castagna family
in its last and only scion. He was not expecting such a greeting. He was
so disconcerted by it that he neglected to reply to the Baron's remark,
as he would have done at any other time. Never did the founder of the
'Credit Austyr-Dalmate' fail to manifest in some such way his profound
aversion for the novelist. Men of his species, profoundly cynical and
calculating, fear and scorn at the same time a certain literature.
Moreover, he had too much tact not to be aware of the instinctive
repulsion with which he inspired Julien. But to Hafner, all social
strength was tariffed, and literary success as much as any other. As he
was afraid, as on the staircase of the Palais Castagna, that he had
gone too far, he added, laying his hand with its long, supple fingers
familiarly upon the author's shoulder:

"This is what I admire in him: It is that he allows profane persons,
such as we are, to plague him, without ever growing angry. He is the
only celebrated auth