“Excuse me—­does your wife know her?”

Gouache glanced quickly at his visitor’s face.

“No.”

Gouache was a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the simple negation of a fact.  But the effort was not altogether successful.  There was an almost imperceptible shade of surprise in the tone which did not escape Giovanni.  On the other hand it was perfectly clear to Gouache that Sant’ Ilario’s interest in the matter was connected with Orsino.

“I cannot find any one who knows anything definite,” said Giovanni after a pause.

“Have you tried Spicca?” asked the artist, examining his work critically.

“No.  Why Spicca?”

“He always knows everything,” answered Gouache vaguely.  “By the way, Saracinesca, do you not think there might be a little more light just over the left eye?”

“How should I know?”

“You ought to know.  What is the use of having been brought up under the very noses of original portraits, all painted by the best masters and doubtless ordered by your ancestors at a very considerable expense—­if you do not know?”

Giovanni laughed.

“My dear old friend,” he said good-humouredly, “have you known us nearly five and twenty years without discovering that it is our peculiar privilege to be ignorant without reproach?”

Gouache laughed in his turn.

“You do not often make sharp remarks—­but when you do!”

Giovanni left the studio very soon, and went in search of Spicca.  It was no easy matter to find the peripatetic cynic on a winter’s afternoon, but Gouache’s remark had seemed to mean something, and Sant’ Ilario saw a faint glimmer of hope in the distance.  He knew Spicca’s habits very well, and was aware that when the sun was low he would certainly turn into one of the many houses where he was intimate, and spend an hour over a cup of tea.  The difficulty lay in ascertaining which particular fireside he would select on that afternoon.  Giovanni hastily sketched a route for himself and asked the porter at each of his friends’ houses if Spicca had entered.  Fortune favoured him at last.  Spicca was drinking his tea with the Marchesa di San Giacinto.

Giovanni paused a moment before the gateway of the palace in which San Giacinto had inhabited a large hired apartment for many years.  He did not see much of his cousin, now, on account of differences in political opinion, and he had no reason whatever for calling on Flavia, especially as formal New Year’s visits had lately been exchanged.  However, as San Giacinto was now a leading authority on questions of landed property in the city, it struck him that he could pretend a desire to see Flavia’s husband, and make that an excuse for staying a long time, if necessary, in order to wait for him.