as the case with Mademoiselle Steno. The young man had
never employed more vanity than enthusiasm. Every woman, mistress or
friend, had been to him, nine times out of ten, a curiosity, then a
model. But, as he held that the model could not be recognized by any
exterior sign, he did not think that he was wrong in making use of his
prestige as a writer, for what he called his "culture." He was capable
of justice, the defense which he made of Fanny Hafner to Montfanon
proved it; of admiration, his respect for the noble qualities of that
same Montfanon testify to it; of compassion, for without it he would
not have apprehended at once with so much sympathy the result which the
return of Count Gorka would have on the destiny of innocent Alba Steno.

On reaching the staircase of the Palais Castagna, instead of hastening,
as was natural, to find out at least what meant the return to Rome
of the lover whom Madame Steno deceived, he collected his startled
sensibilities before meeting Alba, and, pausing, he scribbled in a
note-book which he drew from his pocket, with a pencil always within
reach of his fingers, in a firm hand, precise and clear, this note
savoring somewhat of sentimentalism:

"25 April, '90. Palais Castagna.--Marvellous staircase constructed by
Balthazar Peruzzi; so broad and long, with double rows of stairs, like
those of Santa Colomba, near Siena. Enjoyed above all the sight of
an interior garden so arranged, so designed that the red flowers, the
regularity of the green shrubs, the neat lines of the graveled walks
resemble the features of a face. The idea of the Latin garden, opposed
to the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon, the latter respecting the irregularity
of nature, the other all in order, humanizing and administering even to
the flower-garden."

"Subject the complexity of life to a thought harmonious and clear, a
constant mark of the Latin genus, for a group of trees as well as an
entire nation, an entire religion--Catholicism. It is the contrary
in the races of the North. Significance of the word: the forests have
taught man liberty."

He had hardly finished writing that oddly interpreted memorandum, and
was closing his note-book, when the sound of a familiar voice caused
him to turn suddenly. He had not heard ascend the stairs a personage who
waited until he finished writing, and who was no other than one of the
actors in his "troupe" to use his expression, one of the persons of the
party of that morning or