"That is all I know," Gouache answered, pointing to Maria Consuelo's
portrait which stood finished upon an easel before him, set in an old
frame. He had been touching it when Giovanni entered. "That is all I
know, and I do not know that thoroughly. I wish I did. She is a
wonderful subject."

Sant' Ilario gazed at the picture in silence.

"Are her eyes really like these?" he asked at length.

"Much finer."

"And her mouth?"

"Much larger," answered Gouache with a smile.

"She is bad," said Giovanni with conviction, and he thought of the
Signor Aragno.

"Women are never bad," observed Gouache with a thoughtful air. "Some are
less angelic than others. You need only tell them all so to assure
yourself of the fact."

"I daresay. What is this person? French, Spanish--South American?"

"I have not the least idea. She is not French, at all events."

"Excuse me--does your wife know her?"

Gouache glanced quickly at his visitor's face.

"No."

Gouache was a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for
reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the
simple negation of a fact. But the effort was not altogether successful.
There was an almost imperceptible shade of surprise in the tone which
did not escape Giovanni. On the other hand it was perfectly clear to
Gouache that Sant' Ilario's interest in the matter was connected with
Orsino.

"I cannot find any one who knows anything definite," said Giovanni after
a pause.

"Have you tried Spicca?" asked the artist, examining his work
critically.

"No. Why Spicca?"

"He always knows everything," answered Gouache vaguely. "By the way,
Saracinesca, do you not think there might be a little more light just
over the left eye?"

"How should I know?"

"You ought to know. What is the use of having been brought up under the
very noses of original portraits, all painted by the best masters and
doubtless ordered by your ancestors at a very considerable expense--if
you do not know?"

Giovanni laughed.

"My dear old friend," he said good-humouredly, "have you known us nearly
five and twenty years without discovering that it is our peculiar
privilege to be ignorant without reproach?"

Gouache laughed in his turn.

"You do not often make sharp remarks--but when you do!"

Giovanni left the studio very soon, and went in search of Spicca. It was
no easy matter to find the peripatetic cynic on a winter's afternoon,
but Gouache's remark had seem