dies.
Countess Steno has a headache. We did not even count on the Baron, who
is usually promptness personified."

"I was sure Dorsenne would not fail us," said Alba, gazing at the young
man with her large eyes, of a blue as clear as those of Madame Gorka
were dark. "Only that I expected we should meet him on the staircase as
we were leaving, and that he would say to us, in surprise: 'What, I am
not on time?' Ah," she continued, "do not excuse yourself, but reply
to the examination in Roman history we are about to put you through. We
have to follow here a veritable course studying all these old chests.
What are the arms of this family?" she asked, leaning with Dorsenne over
one of the cassoni. "You do not know? The Carafa, famous man! And
what Pope did they have? You do not know that either? Paul Fourth, sir
novelist. If ever you visit us in Venice, you will be surprised at the
Doges."

She employed so affectionate a grace in that speech, and she was so
apparently in one of her moods--so rare, alas! of childish joyousness,
that Dorsenne, preoccupied as he was, felt his heart contract on her
account. The simultaneous absence of Madame Steno and Lincoln Maitland
could only be fortuitous. But persuaded that the Countess loved
Maitland, and not doubting that she was his mistress, the absence of
both appeared singularly suspicious to him. Such a thought sufficed
to render the young girl's innocent gayety painful to him. That gayety
would become tragical if it were true that the Countess's other lover
had returned unexpectedly, warned by some one. Dorsenne experienced
genuine agitation on asking Madame Gorka:

"How is Boleslas?"

"Very well, I suppose," said his wife. "I have not had a letter to-day.
Does not one of your proverbs say, 'No news is good news?'"

Baron Hafner was beside Maud Gorka when she uttered that sentence.
Involuntarily Dorsenne looked at him, and involuntarily, master as he
was of himself, he looked at Dorsenne. It was no longer a question of a
simple hypothesis. That Boleslas Gorka had returned to Rome unknown to
his wife constituted, for any one who knew of his relations with Madame
Steno, and of the infidelity of the latter, an event full of formidable
consequences. Both men were possessed by the same thought. Was
there still time to prevent a catastrophe? But each of them in this
circumstance, as is so often the case in important matters of life, was
to show the deepness of his character. Not a m