CHAPTER V.COUNTESS STENO.
A woman less courageous than the Countess, less capable of looking a situation in the face and of advancing to it, such an evening would have marked the prelude to one of those nights of insomnia when the mind exhausts in advance all the agonies of probable danger.

Countess Steno did not know what weakness and fear were.
A creature of energy and of action, who felt herself to be above all danger, she attached no meaning to the word uneasiness.

So she slept, on the night which followed that soiree, a sleep as profound, as refreshing, as if Gorka had never returned with vengeance in his heart, with threats in his eyes.

Toward ten o'clock the following morning, she was in the tiny salon, or rather, the office adjoining her bedroom, examining several accounts brought by one of her men of business.

Rising at seven o'clock, according to her custom, she had taken the cold bath in which, in summer as well as winter, she daily quickened her blood.
She had breakfasted, 'a l'anglaise', following the rule to which she claimed to owe the preservation of her digestion, upon eggs, cold meat, and tea.