“Just heaven!  What an old story!  Besides, I have not the type.”

“The ‘Mysteries of Dionysus,’” suggested Gouache.  “Thyrsus, leopard’s skin—­”

“A Bacchante!  Fie, Monsieur—­and then, the leopard, when we only have a tiger.”

“Indian princess interviewed by a man-eater—­jungle—­new moon—­tropical vegetation—­”

“You can think of nothing but subjects for a dark type,” said Madame d’Aragona impatiently.

“The fact is, in countries where the tiger walks abroad, the women are generally brunettes.”

“I hate facts.  You who are enthusiastic, can you not help us?” She turned to Orsino.

“Am I enthusiastic?”

“Yes, I am sure of it.  Think of something.”

Orsino was not pleased.  He would have preferred to be thought cold and impassive.

“What can I say?  The first idea was the best.  Get a lion instead of a tiger—­nothing is simpler.”

“For my part I prefer the damask cloak and the original picture,” said Gouache with decision.  “All this mythology is too complicated—­too Pompeian—­how shall I say?  Besides there is no distinct allusion.  A Hercules on a bracket—­anybody may have that.  If you were the Marchessa di San Giacinto, for instance—­oh, then everyone would laugh.”

“Why?  What is that?”

“She married my cousin,” said Orsino.  “He is an enormous giant, and they say that she has tamed him.”

“Ah no!  That would not do.  Something else, please.”

Orsino involuntarily thought of a sphynx as he looked at the massive brow, the yellow, sleepy eyes, and the heavy mouth.  He wondered how the late Aranjuez had lived and what death he had died.

He offered the suggestion.

“It would be appropriate,” replied Madame d’Aragona.  “The Sphynx in the Desert.  Rome is a desert to me.”

“It only depends on you—­” Orsino began.

“Oh, of course!  To make acquaintances, to show myself a little everywhere—­it is simple enough.  But it wearies me—­until one is caught up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only bores oneself, and I may leave so soon.  Decidedly it is not worth the trouble.  Is it?”

She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice.  Orsino laughed.

“How can you ask that question!” he exclaimed.  “Only let the trouble be ours.”

“Ah!  I said you were enthusiastic.”  She shook her head, and rose from her seat.  “It is time for me to go.  We have done nothing this morning, and it is all your fault, Prince.”

“I am distressed—­I will not intrude upon your next sitting.”

“Oh—­as far as that is concerned—­” She did not finish the sentence, but took up the neglected tiger’s skin from the chair on which it lay.

She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers.  She came very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling.