“Beethoven was not at work when he made the remark,” observed Orsino, defending himself.

“Nor am I,” said Gouache, taking up his brushes again.  “If you will resume the pose—­so—­thoughtful but bold—­imagine that you are already an ancestor contemplating posterity from the height of a nobler age—­you understand.  Try and look as if you were already framed and hanging in the Saracinesca gallery between a Titian and a Giorgione.”

Orsino resumed his position and scowled at Anastase with a good will.

“Not quite such a terrible frown, perhaps,” suggested the latter.  “When you do that, you certainly look like the gentleman who murdered the Colonna in a street brawl—­I forget how long ago.  You have his portrait.  But I fancy the Princess would prefer—­yes—­that is more natural.  You have her eyes.  How the world raved about her twenty years ago—­and raves still, for that matter.”

“She is the most beautiful woman in the world,” said Orsino.  There was something in the boy’s unaffected admiration of his mother which contrasted pleasantly with his youthful affectation of cynicism and indifference.  His handsome face lighted up a little, and the painter worked rapidly.

But the expression was not lasting.  Orsino was at the age when most young men take the trouble to cultivate a manner, and the look of somewhat contemptuous gravity which he had lately acquired was already becoming habitual.  Since all men in general have adopted the fashion of the mustache, youths who are still waiting for the full crop seem to have difficulty in managing their mouths.  Some draw in their lips with that air of unnatural sternness observable in rough weather among passengers on board ship, just before they relinquish the struggle and retire from public life.  Others contract their mouths to the shape of a heart, while there are yet others who lose control of the pendant lower lip and are content to look like idiots, while expecting the hairy growth which is to make them look like men.  Orsino had chosen the least objectionable idiosyncrasy and had elected to be of a stern countenance.  When he forgot himself he was singularly handsome, and Gouache lay in wait for his moments of forgetfulness.

“You are quite right,” said the Frenchman.  “From the classic point of view your mother was and is the most beautiful dark woman in the world.  For myself—­well in the first place, you are her son, and secondly I am an artist and not a critic.  The painter’s tongue is his brush and his words are colours.”

“What were you going to say about my mother?” asked Orsino with some curiosity.

“Oh—­nothing.  Well, if you must hear it, the Princess represents my classical ideal, but not my personal ideal.  I have admired some one else more.”

“Donna Faustina?” enquired Orsino.

“Ah well, my friend—­she is my wife, you see.  That always makes a great difference in the degree of admiration—­”