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 muscle of Hafner's face
quivered. It was a question, perhaps, of rendering a service to a woman
in danger, whom he loved with all the feeling of which he was capable.
That woman was the mainspring of his social position in Rome. She was
still more. A plan for Fanny's marriage, as yet secret, but on the point
of being consummated, depended upon Madame Steno. But he felt it
impossible to attempt to render her any service before having spent half
an hour in the rooms of the Palais Castagna, and he began to employ that
half hour in a manner which would be most profitable to his possible