“I am at your service, sir, in the matter,” said Mr. Casaubon, with polite condescension.  “Having given up the interior of my head to idleness, it is as well that the exterior should work in this way.”

“You are unspeakably good—­now I am happy!” said Naumann, and then went on in German to Will, pointing here and there to the sketch as if he were considering that.  Putting it aside for a moment, he looked round vaguely, as if seeking some occupation for his visitors, and afterwards turning to Mr. Casaubon, said—­

“Perhaps the beautiful bride, the gracious lady, would not be unwilling to let me fill up the time by trying to make a slight sketch of her—­not, of course, as you see, for that picture—­ only as a single study.”

Mr. Casaubon, bowing, doubted not that Mrs. Casaubon would oblige him, and Dorothea said, at once, “Where shall I put myself?”

Naumann was all apologies in asking her to stand, and allow him to adjust her attitude, to which she submitted without any of the affected airs and laughs frequently thought necessary on such occasions, when the painter said, “It is as Santa Clara that I want you to stand—­ leaning so, with your cheek against your hand—­so—­looking at that stool, please, so!”

Will was divided between the inclination to fall at the Saint’s feet and kiss her robe, and the temptation to knock Naumann down while he was adjusting her arm.  All this was impudence and desecration, and he repented that he had brought her.

The artist was diligent, and Will recovering himself moved about and occupied Mr. Casaubon as ingeniously as he could; but he did not in the end prevent the time from seeming long to that gentleman, as was clear from his expressing a fear that Mrs. Casaubon would be tired.  Naumann took the hint and said—­

“Now, sir, if you can oblige me again; I will release the lady-wife.”

So Mr. Casaubon’s patience held out further, and when after all it turned out that the head of Saint Thomas Aquinas would be more perfect if another sitting could be had, it was granted for the morrow.  On the morrow Santa Clara too was retouched more than once.  The result of all was so far from displeasing to Mr. Casaubon, that he arranged for the purchase of the picture in which Saint Thomas Aquinas sat among the doctors of the Church in a disputation too abstract to be represented, but listened to with more or less attention by an audience above.  The Santa Clara, which was spoken of in the second place, Naumann declared himself to be dissatisfied with—­ he could not, in conscience, engage to make a worthy picture of it; so about the Santa Clara the arrangement was conditional.