The apprehension of an immediate drama which had possessed him, for the first time, after the conversation with Montfanon, for the second time, in a stronger manner, by proving the ignorance of Madame Gorka on the subject of the husband’s return—­that frightful and irresistible evocation in a clandestine chamber, suddenly deluged with blood, was banished by the simplest event.  The six visitors exchanged their last impressions on the melancholy and magnificence of the Castagna apartments, and they ended by descending the grand staircase with the pillars, through the windows of which staircase smiled beneath the scorching sun the small garden which Dorsenne had compared to a face.  The young man walked a little in advance, beside Alba Steno, whom he now tried, but in vain, to cheer.  Suddenly, at the last turn of the broad steps which tempered the decline gradually, her face brightened with surprise and pleasure.  She uttered a slight cry and said:  “There is my mother!” And Julien saw the Madame Steno, whom he had seen, in an access of almost delirious anxiety, surprised, assassinated by a betrayed lover.  She was standing upon the gray and black mosaic of the peristyle, dressed in the most charming morning toilette.  Her golden hair was gathered up under a large hat of flowers, over which was a white veil; her hand toyed with the silver handle of a white parasol, and in the reflection of that whiteness, with her clear, fair complexion, with her lovely blue eyes in which sparkled passion and intelligence, with her faultless teeth which gleamed when she smiled, with her form still slender notwithstanding the fulness of her bust, she seemed to be a creature so youthful, so vigorous, so little touched by age that a stranger would never have taken her to be the mother of the tall young girl who was already beside her and who said to her—­

“What imprudence!  Ill as you were this morning, to go out in this sun.  Why did you do so?”

“To fetch you and to take you home!” replied the Countess gayly.  “I was ashamed of having indulged myself!  I rose, and here I am.  Good-day, Dorsenne.  I hope you kept your eyes open up there.  A story might be written on the Ardea affair.  I will tell it to you.  Good-day, Maud.  How kind of you to make lazy Alba exercise a little!  She would have quite a different color if she walked every morning.  Goodday, Florent.  Good-day, Lydia.  The master is not here?  And you, old friend, what have you done with Fanny?”

She distributed these simple “good-days” with a grace so delicate, a smile so rare for each one—­tender for her daughter, spirituelle for the author, grateful for Madame Gorka, amicably surprised for Chapron and Madame Maitland, familiar and confiding for her old friend, as she called the Baron.  She was evidently the soul of the small party, for her mere presence seemed to have caused animation to sparkle in every eye.