purchases, for he turned to Madame Gorka and said to her, with the rather
exaggerated politeness habitual to him:

"Countess, if you will permit me to advise you, do not pause so long
before these coffers, interesting as they may be. First, as I have just
told Dorsenne, Cavalier Fossati, the agent, has his spies everywhere
here. Your position has already been remarked, you may be sure, so that
if you take a fancy for one, he will know it in advance, and he will
manage to make you pay double, triple, and more for it. And then we have
to see so much, notably a cartoon of twelve designs by old masters, which
Ardea did not even suspect he had, and which Fossati discovered--would
you believe?--worm-eaten, in a cupboard in one of the granaries."

"There is some one whom your collection would interest," said Florent,
"my brother-in-law."

"Well," replied Madame Gorka to Hafner with her habitual good-nature,
"there are at least two of these coffers that I like and wish to have.
I said it in so loud a tone that it is not worth the trouble of hoping
that your Cavalier Fossati does not know it, if he really has that mode
of espionage in practice. But forty or fifty pounds more make no
difference--nor forty thousand even."

"Baron Hafner will warn you that your tone is not low enough," laughed
Alba Steno, "and he will add his great phrase: 'You will never be
diplomatic.' But," added the girl, turning toward Dorsenne, having drawn
back from silent Lydia Maitland, and arranging to fall behind with the
young man, "I am about to employ a little diplomacy in order to find out
whether you have any trouble." And here her mobile face changed its
expression, looking into Julien's with genuine anxiety. "Yes," said she,