Gorka at a very early age had witnessed a stirring family drama--his mother and his father lived apart, while neither the one nor the other had the exclusive guidance of the child.
How could she find indulgence for the shameful hypocrisy of two years' standing, for the villainy of that treachery practised at the domestic hearth, for the continued, voluntary disloyalty of every day, every hour?
Though Maud experienced, in the midst of her despair, the sort of calmness which proves a firm and just resolution, when she reentered the Palazzetto Doria--what a drama had been enacted in her heart since her going out!--and it was in a voice almost as calm as usual that she asked: "Is the Count at home ?" What did she experience when the servant, after answering her in the affirmative, added: "Madame and Mademoiselle Steno, too, are awaiting Madame in the salon." At the thought that the woman who had stolen from her her husband was there, the betrayed wife felt her blood boil, to use a common but expressive phrase.

It was very natural that Alba's mother should call upon her, as was her custom.

It was still more natural for her to come there that day.

For very probably a report of the duel the following day had reached her.

Her presence, however, and at that moment, aroused in Maud a feeling of indignation so impassioned that her first impulse was to enter, to drive out Boleslas's mistress as one would drive out a servant surprised thieving.