“Sant’ Ilario.  My grandfather is still alive.”

“How splendid!  I adore strong races.”

“It is very interesting,” observed Gouache, poking the stick of a brush into the eye of his picture.  “I have painted three generations of the family, I who speak to you, and I hope to paint the fourth if Don Orsino here can be cured of his cynicism and induced to marry Donna—­what is her name?” He turned to the young man.

“She has none—­and she is likely to remain nameless,” answered Orsino gloomily.

“We will call her Donna Ignota,” suggested Madame d’Aragona.

“And build altars to the unknown love,” added Gouache.

Madame d’Aragona smiled faintly, but Orsino persisted in looking grave.

“It seems to be an unpleasant subject, Prince.”

“Very unpleasant, Madame,” answered Orsino shortly.

Thereupon Madame d’Aragona looked at Gouache and raised her brows a little as though to ask a question, knowing perfectly well that Orsino was watching her.  The young man could not see the painter’s eyes, and the latter did not betray by any gesture that he was answering the silent interrogation.

“Then I have eyes like a tiger, you say.  You frighten me.  How disagreeable—­to look like a wild beast!”

“It is a prejudice,” returned Orsino.  “One hears people say of a woman that she is beautiful as a tigress.”

“An idea!” exclaimed Gouache, interrupting.  “Shall I change the damask cloak to a tiger’s skin?  One claw just hanging over the white shoulder—­Omphale, you know—­in a modern drawing-room—­a small cast of the Farnese Hercules upon a bracket, there, on the right.  Decidedly, here is an idea.  Do you permit, Madame!”

“Anything you like—­only do not spoil the likeness,” answered Madame d’Aragona, leaning back in her chair, and looking sleepily at Orsino from beneath her heavy, half-closed lids.

“You will spoil the whole picture,” said Orsino, rather anxiously.

Gouache laughed.

“What harm if I do?  I can restore it in five minutes—­”

“Five minutes!”

“An hour, if you insist upon accuracy of statement,” replied Gouache with a shade of annoyance.

He had an idea, and like most people whom fate occasionally favours with that rare commodity he did not like to be disturbed in the realisation of it.  He was already squeezing out quantities of tawny colours upon his palette.

“I am a passive instrument,” said Madame d’Aragona.  “He does what he pleases.  These men of genius—­what would you have?  Yesterday a gown from Worth—­to-day a tiger’s skin—­indeed, I tremble for to-morrow.”

She laughed a little and turned her head away.

“You need not fear,” answered Gouache, daubing in his new idea with an enormous brush.  “Fashions change.  Woman endures.  Beauty is eternal.  There is nothing which may not be made becoming to a beautiful woman.”