Dorsenne had heard that it was a watchword between Peppino Ardea and his friends to take lightly the disaster which came upon the Castagna family in its last and only scion.  He was not expecting such a greeting.  He was so disconcerted by it that he neglected to reply to the Baron’s remark, as he would have done at any other time.  Never did the founder of the ‘Credit Austyr-Dalmate’ fail to manifest in some such way his profound aversion for the novelist.  Men of his species, profoundly cynical and calculating, fear and scorn at the same time a certain literature.  Moreover, he had too much tact not to be aware of the instinctive repulsion with which he inspired Julien.  But to Hafner, all social strength was tariffed, and literary success as much as any other.  As he was afraid, as on the staircase of the Palais Castagna, that he had gone too far, he added, laying his hand with its long, supple fingers familiarly upon the author’s shoulder: 

“This is what I admire in him:  It is that he allows profane persons, such as we are, to plague him, without ever growing angry.  He is the only celebrated author who is so simple....  But he is better than an author; he is a veritable man-of-the-world.”

“Is not the Countess here?” asked Dorsenne, addressing Alba Steno, and without replying any more to the action, so involuntarily insulting, of the Baron than he had to his sly malice or to the Prince’s facetious offer.  Madame Steno’s absence had again inspired him with an apprehension which the young girl dissipated by replying: 

“My mother is on the terrace....  We were afraid it was too cool for Fanny."....  It was a very simple phrase, which the Contessina uttered very simply, as she fanned herself with a large fan of white feathers.  Each wave of it stirred the meshes of her fair hair, which she wore curled upon her rather high forehead.  Julien understood her too well not to perceive that her voice, her gestures, her eyes, her entire being, betrayed a nervousness at that moment almost upon the verge of sadness.

Was she still reserved from the day before, or was she a prey to one of those inexplicable transactions, which had led Dorsenne in his meditations of the night to such strange suspicions?  Those suspicions returned to him with the feeling that, of all the persons present, Alba was the only one who seemed to be aware of the drama which undoubtedly was brewing.  He resolved to seek once more for the solution of the living enigma which that singular girl was.  How lovely she appeared to him that evening with, those two expressions which gave her an almost tragical look!  The corners of her mouth drooped somewhat; her upper lip, almost too short, disclosed her teeth, and in the lower part of her pale face was a bitterness so prematurely sad!  Why?  It was not the time to ask the question.  First of all, it was necessary for the young man to go in search of Madame Steno on the terrace, which terminated in a paradise of