“Admirable!” exclaimed Gouache.  “It is impossible to tell where the woman ends and the tiger begins.  Let me draw you like that.”

“Oh no!  Not for anything in the world.”

She turned away quickly and dropped the skin from her shoulders.

“You will not stay a little longer?  You will not let me try?” Gouache seemed disappointed.

“Impossible,” she answered, putting on her hat and beginning to arrange her veil before a mirror.

Orsino watched her as she stood, her arms uplifted, in an attitude which is almost always graceful, even for an otherwise ungraceful woman.  Madame d’Aragona was perhaps a little too short, but she was justly proportioned and appeared to be rather slight, though the tight-fitting sleeves of her frock betrayed a remarkably well turned arm.  Not seeing her face, one might not have singled her out of many as a very striking woman, for she had neither the stateliness of Orsino’s mother, nor the enchanting grace which distinguished Gouache’s wife.  But no one could look into her eyes without feeling that she was very far from being an ordinary woman.

“Quite impossible,” she repeated, as she tucked in the ends of her veil and then turned upon the two men.  “The next sitting?  Whenever you like—­to-morrow—­the day after—­name the time.”

“When to-morrow is possible, there is no choice,” said Gouache, “unless you will come again to-day.”

“To-morrow, then, good-bye.”  She held out her hand.

“There are sketches on each of my fingers, Madame—­principally, of tigers.”

“Good-bye then—­consider your hand shaken.  Are you going, Prince?”

Orsino had taken his hat and was standing beside her.

“You will allow me to put you into your carriage.”

“I shall walk.”

“So much the better.  Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache.”

“Why say, Monsieur?”

“As you like—­you are older than I.”

“I?  Who has told you that legend?  It is only a myth.  When you are sixty years old, I shall still be five-and-twenty.”

“And I?” enquired Madame d’Aragona, who was still young enough to laugh at age.

“As old as you were yesterday, not a day older.”

“Why not say to-day?”

“Because to-day has a to-morrow—­yesterday has none.”

“You are delicious, my dear Gouache.  Good-bye.”

Madame d’Aragona went out with Orsino, and they descended the broad staircase together.  Orsino was not sure whether he might not be showing too much anxiety to remain in the company of his new acquaintance, and as he realised how unpleasant it would be to sacrifice the walk with her, he endeavoured to excuse to himself his derogation from his self-imposed character of cool superiority and indifference.  She was very amusing, he said to himself, and he had nothing in the world to do.  He never had anything to do, since his education had been completed.  Why should he not walk with Madame d’Aragona and talk to her?  It would be better than hanging about the club or reading a novel at home.  The hounds did not meet on that day, or he would not have been at Gouache’s at all.  But they were to meet to-morrow, and he would therefore not see Madame d’Aragona.