She was not one of those mistresses to whom their lovers' intimate friends are always enemies.

On the contrary, she enveloped them in the abundant and blissful sympathy which love awoke in her.

Besides, she was too cunning not to feel that Florent approved of her love.

But, on the other hand, the intense aversion which Alba at that moment felt toward her mother's suspected intrigues was expressed by the formality with which she inclined her head in response to the farewell of the young man, who was too happy to have found that the dispute had not been heard.
"From now until to-morrow," thought he, on redescending the staircase, "there will be no one to warn Lincoln....

The purchase of the drawings was an invention to demonstrate my tranquillity....Now I must find two discreet seconds." Florent was a very deliberate man, and a man who had at his command perfect evenness of temperament whenever it was not a question of his enthusiastic attachment to his brother-in-law.