ied Del Ferice.

Donna Tullia laughed, and took his hand to descend from her carriage.

CHAPTER VII.

Monsieur Gouache's studio was on the second floor. The narrow flight of
steps ended abruptly against a green door, perforated by a slit for the
insertion of letters, by a shabby green cord which, being pulled, rang a
feeble bell, and adorned by a visiting-card, whereon with many
superfluous flourishes and ornaments of caligraphy was inscribed the name
of the artist--ANASTASE GOUACHE.

The door being opened by a string, Donna Tullia and Del Ferice entered,
and mounting half-a-dozen more steps, found themselves in the studio, a
spacious room with a window high above the floor, half shaded by a
curtain of grey cotton. In one corner an iron stove gave out loud
cracking sounds, pleasant to hear on the damp winter's morning, and the
flame shone red through chinks of the rusty door. A dark-green carpet in
passably good condition covered the floor; three or four broad divans,
spread with oriental rugs, and two very much dilapidated carved chairs
with leathern seats, constituted the furniture; the walls were hung with
sketches of heads and figures; half-finished portraits stood upon two
easels, and others were leaning together in a corner; a couple of small
tables were covered with colour-tubes, brushes, and palette-knives;
mingled odours of paint, varnish, and cigarette-smoke pervaded the air;
and, lastly, upon a high stool before one of the easels, his sleeves
turned up to the elbow, and his feet tucked in upon a rail beneath him,
sat Anastase Gouache himself.

He was a man of not more than seven-and-twenty years, with delicate pale
features, and an abundance of glossy black hair. A small and very much
pointed moustache shaded his upper lip, and the extremities thereof rose
short and perpendicular from the corners of his well-shaped mouth. His
eyes were dark and singularly expressive, his forehead low and very
broad; his hands were sufficiently nervous and well knit, but white as a
woman's, and the fingers tapered delicately to the tips. He wore a brown
velvet coat more or less daubed with paint, and his collar was low at the
throat.

He sprang from his high stool as Donna Tullia and Del Ferice entered, his
palette and mahl-stick in his hand, and made a most ceremonious bow;
whereat Donna Tullia laughed gaily.

"Well, Gouache," she said familiarly, "what have you been doing?"

Anastase motioned to her to come