"I am satisfied that we have left Rome," said she, evasively, and it was
true in two senses of the word:

First of all, because she did not delude herself with regard to the
return of the moral energy of which Boleslas was so proud. She knew that
his variable will was at the mercy of the first sensation. Then, what
she had not confessed to her husband, the sorrow of a broken friendship
was joined in her to the sorrows of a betrayed wife. The sudden
discovery of the infamy of Alba's mother had not destroyed her strong
affection for the young girl, and during the entire week, busy with her
preparations for a final departure, she had not ceased to wonder
anxiously: "What will she think of my silence?.... What has her mother
told her?.... What has she divined?"

She had loved the "poor little soul," as she called the Contessina in her
pretty English term. She had devoted to her the friendship peculiar to
young women for young girls--a sentiment--very strong and yet very
delicate, which resembles, in its tenderness, the devotion of an elder
sister for a younger. There is in it a little naive protection and also
a little romantic and gracious melancholy. The elder friend is severe
and critical. She tries to assuage, while envying them, the excessive
enthusiasms of the younger. She receives, she provokes her confidence
with the touching gravity of a counsellor. The younger friend is curious
and admiring. She shows herself in all the truth of that graceful
awakening of thoughts and emotions which precede her own period before
marriage. And when there is, as was the case with Alba Steno, a certain
discord of soul between that younger friend and her mother, the affection
for the sister chosen becomes so deep that it can not be broken without
wounds on both sides. It was for that reason that, on leaving Rome,