hat hideous
scene which had just been enacted in that lobby.

"I was frightened at the sight of my own blood," said she, "and I
believe it is only a small cut.... See! I can move my hand without
pain."

When the doctor, hastily summoned, had confirmed that no particles of
glass had remained in the cuts, the Countess felt so reassured that her
gayety returned. Never had she been in a mood more charming than in the
carriage which took them to the Villa Steno.

To a person obliged by proof to condemn another without ceasing to
love her, there is no greater sorrow than to perceive the absolute
unconsciousness of that other person and her serenity in her fault. Poor
Alba, felt overwhelmed by a sadness greater, more depressing still, and
which became materially insupportable, when, toward half-past two, her
mother bade her farewell, although the fete at the English embassy did
not begin until five o'clock.

"I promised poor Hafner to go to see him to-day. I know he is bowed down
with grief. I would like to try to arrange all.... I will send back the
carriage if you wish to go out awhile. I have telephoned Lydia to expect
me at four o'clock.... She will take me."

She had, on detailing the employment so natural of her afternoon, eyes
too brilliant, a smile too happy. She looked too youthful in her light
toilette. Her feet trembled with too nervous an impatience. How could
Alba not have felt that she was telling her an untruth? The undeceived
child had the intuition that the visit to Fanny's father was only a
pretext. It was not the first time that the Countess employed it to
free herself from inconvenient surveillance, the act of sending back
the carriage, which, in Rome as in Paris, is always the probable sign of
clandestine meetings with women of their rank. It was not the first
time that Alba was possessed by suspicion on certain mysterious
disappearances of her mother. That mother did not mistrust that poor
Alba--her Alba, the child so tenderly loved in spite of all--was
suffering at that very moment and on her account the most terrible of
temptations.... When the carriage had disappeared the fixed gaze of the
young girl was turned upon the pavement, and then she felt arise in
her a sudden, instinctive, almost irresistible idea to end the moral
suffering by which she was devoured. It was so simple!... It was
sufficient to end life. One movement which she could make, one single
movement--she could lean over the balust