n her glove. And she continued: "She accuses me of being
the cause of a duel between her husband and Florent Chapron, and she
quarrels with me by letter, without seeing me, without speaking to me!"

"Boleslas Gorka has fought a duel with Florent Chapron?" repeated the
young girl.

"Yes," replied her mother. "I knew that through Hafner. I did not speak
of it to you in order not to worry you with regard to Maud, and I have
only awaited her so long to cheer her up in case I should have found her
uneasy, and this is how she rewards me for my friendship! It seems that
Gorka took offence at some remark of Chapron's about Poles, one of those
innocent remarks made daily on any nation--the Italians, the French, the
English, the Germans, the Jews--and which mean nothing.... I repeated
the remark in jest to Gorka!... I leave you to judge.... Is it my fault
if, instead of laughing at it, he insulted poor Florent, and if the
absurd encounter resulted from it? And Maud, who writes me that she will
never pardon me, that I am a false friend, that I did it expressly to
exasperate her husband.... Ah, let her watch her husband, let her lock
him up, if he is mad! And I, who have received them as I have, I, who
have made their position for them in Rome, I, who had no other thought
than for her just now!... You hear," she added, pressing her daughter's
hand with a fervor which was at least sincere, if her words were
untruthful, "I forbid you seeing her again or writing to her. If she
does not offer me an apology for her insulting note, I no longer wish to
know her. One is foolish to be so kind!"

For the first time, while listening to that speech, Alba was convinced
that her mother was deceiving her. Since suspicion had entered her heart
with regard to her mother, the object until then of such admiration and
affection, she had passed through many stages of mistrust. To talk
with the Countess was always to dissipate them. That was because Madame
Steno, apart from her amorous immorality, was of a frank and truthful
nature.

It was indeed a customary and known weakness of Florent's to repeat
those witticisms which abound in national epigrams, as mediocre as they
are iniquitous. Alba could recall at least twenty circumstances when the
excellent man had uttered such jests at which a sensitive person might
take offence. She would not have thought it utterly impossible that a
duel between Gorka and Chapron might have been provoked by an incident