It was ten o’clock in the evening, when the young man, faithful to his programme, arrived at the door of the large house on the Rue du Vingt Septembre occupied by Madame Steno.  It was an immense modern structure, divided into two distinct parts; to the left a revenue building and to the right a house on the order of those which are to be seen on the borders of Park Monceau.  The Villa Steno, as the inscription in gold upon the black marble door indicated, told the entire story of the Countess’s fortune—­that fortune appraised by rumor, with its habitual exaggeration, now at twenty, now at thirty, millions.  She had in reality two hundred and fifty thousand francs’ income.  But as, in 1873, Count Michel Steno, her husband, died, leaving only debts, a partly ruined palace at Venice and much property heavily mortgaged, the amount of that income proved the truth of the title, “superior woman,” applied by her friends to Alba’s mother.  Her friends likewise added:  “She has been the mistress of Hafner, who has aided her with his financial advice,” an atrocious slander which was so much the more false as it was before ever knowing the Baron that she had begun to amass her wealth.  This is how she managed it: 

At the close of 1873, when, as a young widow, living in retirement in the sumptuous and ruined dwelling on the Grand Canal, she was struggling with her creditors, one of the largest bankers in Rome came to propose to her a very advantageous scheme.  It dealt with a large piece of land which belonged to the Steno estate, a piece of land in Rome, in one of the suburbs, between the Porta Salara and the Porta Pia, a sort of village which the deceased Cardinal Steno, Count Michel’s uncle, had begun to lay out.  After his demise, the land had been rented in lots to kitchen-gardeners, and it was estimated that it was worth about forty centimes a square metre.  The financier offered four francs for it, under the pretext of establishing a factory on the site.  It was a large sum of money.  The Countess required twenty-four hours in which to consider, and, at the end of that time, she refused the offer, which won for her the admiration of the men of business who knew of the refusal.  In 1882, less than ten years later, she sold the same land for ninety francs a metre.  She saw, on glancing at a plan of Rome, and in recalling the history of modern Italy, first, that the new masters of the Eternal City would centre all their ambition in rebuilding it, then that the portion comprised between the Quirinal and the two gates of Salara and Pia would be one of the principal points of development; finally, that if she waited she would obtain a much greater sum than the first offer.  And she had waited, applying herself to watching the administration of her possessions like the severest of intendants, depriving herself, stopping up gaps with unhoped-for profits.  In 1875, she sold to the National Gallery a suite of four panels by Carpaccio, found in one of her country houses, for one hundred and twenty thousand francs.  She had been as active and practical in her material life as she had been light and audacious in her sentimental experiences.  The story circulated of her infidelity to Steno with Werekiew at St. Petersburg, where the diplomatist was stationed, after one year of marriage, was confirmed by the wantonness of her conduct, of which she gave evidence as soon as free.