dreaminess, Dorsenne once gone, and it required that Hafner should call
her attention to it. To the scheming Baron, if the novelist was
attentive to the young girl it was certainly with the object of capturing
a considerable dowry. Julien's income of twenty-five thousand francs
meant independence. The two hundred and fifty thousand francs which Alba
would have at her mother's death was a very large fortune. So Hafner
thought he would deserve the name of "old friend," by taking Madame Steno
aside and saying to her:

"Do you not think Alba has been a little strange for several days!"

"She has always been so," replied the Countess. "Young people are like
that nowadays; there is no more youth."

"Do you not think," continued the Baron, "that perhaps there is another
cause for that sadness--some interest in some one, for example?"

"Alba?" exclaimed the mother. "For whom?"

"For Dorsenne," returned Hafner, lowering his voice; "he just left five
minutes ago, and you see she is no longer interested in anything nor in
any one."

"Ah, I should be very much pleased," said Madame Steno, laughing. "He is
a handsome fellow; he has talent, fortune. He is the grand-nephew of a
hero, which is equivalent to nobility, in my opinion. But Alba has no
thought of it, I assure you. She would have told me; she tells me
everything. We are two friends, almost two comrades, and she knows I
shall leave her perfectly free to choose.... No, my old friend,
I understand my daughter. Neither Dorsenne nor any one else interests