"It is silk muslin, is it not?"

"Yes," replied the Contessina, who rose and leaned over, to offer to the
curious gaze of her pretty neighbor her arm, which gleamed frail,
nervous, and softly fair through the transparent red material, with a bow
of ribbon of the same color tied at her slender shoulder and her graceful
wrist, while Ardea, by the side of Fanny, could be heard saying to the
daughter of Baron Justus, more beautiful than ever that evening, in her
pallor slightly tinged with pink by some secret agitation:

"You visited my palace yesterday, Mademoiselle?"

"No," she replied.

"Ask her why not, Prince," said Hafner.

"Father!" cried Fanny, with a supplication in her black eyes which Ardea
had the delicacy to obey, as he resumed:

"It is a pity. Everything there is very ordinary. But you would have
been interested in the chapel. Indeed, I regret that the most, those
objects before which my ancestors have prayed so long and which end by
being listed in a catalogue.... They even took the reliquary from me,
because it was by Ugolina da Siena. I will buy it back as soon as I can.
Your father applauds my courage. I could not part from those objects
without real sorrow."

"But it is the feeling she has for the entire palace," said the Baron.

"Father!" again implored Fanny.