l achieve that?"

"You have chosen the only good bit in the painting," he declared
stoutly. "Look at the boy's lips. Caravaggio must have modeled them from
a girl's. What business has a fellow with pouting red lips like them to
wear a sword on his thigh?"

Joan laughed with joyousness that was good to hear.

"Pooh! Run away and smite that ball with a long stick!" she said.

"Hum! More than the Italian could have done."

He was ridiculously in earnest. Joan colored suddenly and busied herself
with tubes of paint. She believed he was jealous of the handsome
Lombard. She began to mix some pigments on the palette. Delgrado,
already regretting an inexplicable outburst, turned from the picture and
looked at Murillo's "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a diadem of twelve stars."

"Now, please help me to appreciate that and you will find me a willing
student," he murmured.

But Joan had recovered her self-possession. "Suppose we come off the
high art ladder and talk of our uninteresting selves," she said. "What
of the mystery you hinted at on the Quai? Why shouldn't I call you Mr.
Delgrado? One cannot always say 'Alec,' it's too short."

Then he reddened with confusion. "Delgrado is my name, right enough," he
said. "It is the prefix I object to. It implies that I am sailing under
false colors, and I don't like that."

"I am not good at riddles, and I suspect prefix," she cried.

"Ah, well, I suppose I must get through with it. Have you forgotten how
Rudin introduced me?"

She knitted her brows for a moment. Pretty women should cultivate the
trick, unless they fear wrinkles. It gives them the semblance of looking
in on themselves, and the habit is commendable. "Rudin is fond of his
little joke," she announced at last.

"But--what did he say?"

"Oh, there was some absurdity. He addressed me as if I were a royal
personage, and asked to be allowed to present his Serene Highness Prince
Alexis Delgrado."

The man smiled constrainedly. "It sounds rather nonsensical, doesn't
it?" he said.

"Rudin often invents titles. I have heard efforts much more amusing."

"That is when he is original. Unfortunately, in my case, he was merely
accurate."

Joan whirled round on him. "Are you a Prince?" she gasped, each word
marking a crescendo of wonder.

"Yes--Joan."

"But what am I to do? What am I to say? Must I drop on one knee and kiss
your hand?"

"I cannot help it," he growled.