nk you
were a painter yourself, you speak with such feeling of the beautiful
pictures you are supposed to be painting.'

'I don't know much about painting, though I like looking at pictures;
but I do feel what I am saying, and I think it must have been splendid
to have been Dante's friend as Giotto was, and have been inspired by
him. No wonder he painted beautiful pictures, and one day I will go and
see them all,' announced Doreen.

'I never thought of all that; then I ought to feel more still, because
it is I that inspired Dante; but the worst of it is, Doreen, that I
don't feel Beatrice at all,' Vava confided to her.

'How do you mean?' demanded Doreen.

'I don't feel as if I could possibly inspire a person like Dante; and,
what's more, I don't want to,' she announced in a burst of confidence.

'You wouldn't like to have inspired the most beautiful poem that was
ever written?' cried Doreen incredulously.

'No, I wouldn't like to have inspired a vision of such horrors,'
maintained Vava stoutly.

Doreen could not help laughing at her tone. 'Then you can't admire some
of my pictures,' she suggested.

'I like your little dog,' Vava replied, laughing too. This was an
allusion to Giotto's famous sculpture of shepherds with a dog, on his
beautiful tower at Florence.

And with this Doreen had to be satisfied.

'And you know, Doreen, they say I inspired him; but in this play I don't
say anything very inspiring; it's Dante who has all the say, and utters
all the beautiful speeches; I only have to try and look noble, and
that's fearfully difficult and frightfully dull,' complained Vava.

'It's not difficult for you to look noble, because you are noble--in
character, I mean--and you have a noble face,' declared Doreen.

'Oh Doreen! you horrid flatterer; that is just because you like me. I
don't feel at all noble; but don't let's talk about that. Tell me if
this is the proper way to move my hands when I am talking; the Italians
gesticulate all the time they are talking, it appears. I don't know how
they do it, for I have never been in Italy,' said Vava, talking rapidly,
to prevent Doreen making any more such embarrassing remarks.

'You must wave them gracefully in the air, one at a time,' said Doreen,
suiting the action to the word.

Doreen's action was anything but graceful, and Vava gave a peal of
laughter.

'What is the matter?' demanded the former, stopping her windmill
movements.

'I beg your pardon, but