“There are treasures here,” said he.  “See these two Chinese vases with convex lids, with the orange ground decorated with gilding.  Those are pieces no longer made in China.  It is a lost art.  And this tete-a-tete decorated with flowers; and this pluvial cope in this case.  What a marvel!  It is as good as the one of Pius Second, which was at Pienza and which has been stolen.  I could have bought it at one time for fifteen hundred francs.  It is worth fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, all of that.  Here is some faience.  It was brought from Spain when Cardinal Castagna came from Madrid, when he took the place of Pius Fifth as sponsor of Infanta Isabella.  Ah, what treasures!  But you go like the wind,” he added, “and perhaps it is better, for I would stop, and Cavalier Fossati, the auctioneer, to whom those terrible creditors of Peppino have given charge of the sale, has spies everywhere.  You notice an object, you are marked as a solid man, as they say in Germany.  You are noted.  I shall be down on his list.  I have been caught by him enough.  Ha!  He is a very shrewd man!  But come, I see the ladies.  We should have remembered that they were here,” and smiling—­but at whom?—­at Fossati, at himself or his companion?—­he made the latter read the notice hung on the door of a transversal room, which bore this inscription:  “Salon of marriage-chests.”

There were, indeed, ranged along the walls about fifteen of those wooden cases painted and carved, of those ‘cassoni’ in which it was the fashion, in grand Italian families, to keep the trousseaux destined for the brides.  Those of the Castagnas proved, by their escutcheons, what alliances the last of the grand-nephews of Urban VII, the actual Prince d’Ardea, entered into.  Three very elegant ladies were examining the chests; in them Dorsenne recognized at once fair and delicate Alba Steno, Madame Gorka, with her tall form, her fair hair, too, and her strong English profile, and pretty Madame Maitland, with her olive complexion, who did not seem to have inherited any more negro blood than just enough to tint her delicate face.  Florent Chapron, the painter’s brother-in-law, was the only man with those three ladies.  Countess Steno and Lincoln Maitland were not there, and one could hear the musical voice of Alba spelling the heraldry carved on the coffers, formerly opened with tender curiosity by young girls, laughing and dreaming by turns like her.

“Look, Maud,” said she to Madame Gorka, “there is the oak of the Della Rovere, and there the stars of the Altieri.”

“And I have found the column of the Colonna,” replied Maud Gorka.

“And you, Lydia?” said Mademoiselle Steno to Madame Maitland.

“And I, the bees of the Barberini.”

“And I, the lilies of the Farnese,” said in his turn Florent Chapron, who, having raised his head first, perceived the newcomers.  He greeted them with a pleasant smile, which was reflected in his eyes and which showed his white teeth.  “We no longer expected you, sirs.  Every one has disappointed us.  Lincoln did not wish to leave his atelier.  It seems that Mademoiselle Hafner excused herself yesterday to these ladies.  Countess Steno has a headache.  We did not even count on the Baron, who is usually promptness personified.”