“I have been making some oil-sketches under him,” said Will.  “I hate copying.  I must put something of my own in.  Naumann has been painting the Saints drawing the Car of the Church, and I have been making a sketch of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Driving the Conquered Kings in his Chariot.  I am not so ecclesiastical as Naumann, and I sometimes twit him with his excess of meaning.  But this time I mean to outdo him in breadth of intention.  I take Tamburlaine in his chariot for the tremendous course of the world’s physical history lashing on the harnessed dynasties.  In my opinion, that is a good mythical interpretation.”  Will here looked at Mr. Casaubon, who received this offhand treatment of symbolism very uneasily, and bowed with a neutral air.

“The sketch must be very grand, if it conveys so much,” said Dorothea.  “I should need some explanation even of the meaning you give.  Do you intend Tamburlaine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes?”

“Oh yes,” said Will, laughing, “and migrations of races and clearings of forests—­and America and the steam-engine.  Everything you can imagine!”

“What a difficult kind of shorthand!” said Dorothea, smiling towards her husband.  “It would require all your knowledge to be able to read it.”

Mr. Casaubon blinked furtively at Will.  He had a suspicion that he was being laughed at.  But it was not possible to include Dorothea in the suspicion.

They found Naumann painting industriously, but no model was present; his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivacious person set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so that everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at that time.

The painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on his finished and unfinished subjects, seeming to observe Mr. Casaubon as much as he did Dorothea.  Will burst in here and there with ardent words of praise, marking out particular merits in his friend’s work; and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonnas seated under inexplicable canopied thrones with the simple country as a background, and of saints with architectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged in their skulls.  Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning:  but all this was apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had not interested himself.

“I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have to read it as an enigma; but I should learn to understand these pictures sooner than yours with the very wide meaning,” said Dorothea, speaking to Will.

“Don’t speak of my painting before Naumann,” said Will.  “He will tell you, it is all pfuscherei, which is his most opprobrious word!”

“Is that true?” said Dorothea, turning her sincere eyes on Naumann, who made a slight grimace and said—­