In two minutes more the elegant carriage drew up at the Moorish structure, which gleamed among the other buildings in that street, for the most part unfinished, with a sort of insolent, sumptuousness.
The two ladies alighted and disappeared through the door, which closed upon them, while the coachman started up his horses at the pace of animals which are returning to their stable.

He checked them that they might not become overheated, and the fine cobs trembled impatiently in their harnesses.

Evidently the Countess and Alba were in the studio for a long sitting.

What had Boleslas learned that he did not already know?
Was he not ridiculous, standing upon the sidewalk of the square in the centre of which rose the ruin of an antique reservoir, called, for a reason more than doubtful, the trophy of Marius.

With one glance the young man took in this scene--the empty victoria turning in the opposite direction, the large square, the ruin, the row of high houses, his cab.
He appeared to himself so absurd for being there to spy out that of which he was only too sure, that he burst into a nervous laugh and reentered his cab, giving his own address to the cabman: Palazzetto Doria, Place de Venise.