he is."

"The devil?" repeated Gouache, raising his eyebrows with a slight smile.
"I was not aware--"

"And yet you have been in Rome four years!"

"I am very careful," returned Gouache. "I never by any chance hear any
evil of those whom I am to paint."

"You have very well-bred ears, Monsieur Gouache. I fear that if I had
attended some of the meetings in your studio while Donna Tullia was
having her portrait painted, I should have heard strange things. Have
they all escaped you?"

Gouache was silent for a moment. It did not surprise him to learn that
the omniscient Cardinal was fully acquainted with the doings in his
studio, but he looked curiously at the great man before he answered. The
Cardinal's small gleaming eyes met his with the fearlessness of
superiority.

"I remember nothing but good of your Eminence," the painter replied at
last, with a laugh; and applying himself to his work, he began to draw in
the outline of the Cardinal's head. The words he had just heard, implying
as they did a thorough knowledge of the minutest details of social life,
would have terrified Madame Mayer, and would perhaps have driven Del
Ferice out of the Papal States in fear of his life. Even the good-natured
and foolish Valdarno might reasonably have been startled; but Anastase
was made of different stuff. His grandfather had helped to storm the
Bastille, his father had been among the men of 1848; there was
revolutionary blood in his veins, and he distinguished between real and
imaginary conspiracy with the unerring certainty of instinct, as the
bloodhound knows the track of man from the slot of meaner game. He
laughed at Donna Tullia, he distrusted Del Ferice, and to some extent he
understood the Cardinal. And the statesman understood him, too, and was
interested by him.

"You may as well forget their chatter. It does me no harm, and it amuses
them. It does not seem to surprise you that I should know all about it,
however. You have good nerves, Monsieur Gouache."

"Of course your Eminence can send me out of Rome tomorrow, if you
please," answered Gouache, with perfect unconcern. "But the portrait will
not be finished so soon."

"No--that would be a pity. You shall stay. But the others--what would you
advise me to do with them?" asked the Cardinal, his bright eyes twinkling
with amusement.

"If by the others your Eminence means my friends," replied Gouache,
quietly, "I can assure you that none of them will ever cause you t