s I," returned Del Ferice, rather
gloomily. "He is stupid and prejudiced."

"Really?" ejaculated Gouache, with innocent surprise. "A little more
towards me, Madame. Thank you--so." And he continued painting.

"You are absurd, Del Ferice!" exclaimed Donna Tullia, colouring a little.
"You think every one prejudiced and stupid who does not agree with you."

"With me? With you, with us, you should say. Giovanni is a specimen of
the furious Conservative, who hates change and has a cold chill at the
word 'republic' Do you call that intelligent?"

"Giovanni is intelligent for all that," answered Madame Mayer. "I am not
sure that he is not more intelligent than you--in some ways," she added,
after allowing her rebuke to take effect.

Del Ferice smiled blandly. It was not his business to show that he was
hurt.

"In one thing he is stupid compared with me," he replied. "He is very far
from doing justice to your charms. It must be a singular lack of
intelligence which prevents him from seeing that you are as beautiful as
you are charming. Is it not so, Gouache?"

"Does any one deny it?" asked the Frenchman, with an air of devotion.

Madame Mayer blushed with annoyance; both because she coveted Giovanni's
admiration more than that of other men, and knew that she had not won it,
and because she hated to feel that Del Ferice was able to wound her so
easily. To cover her discomfiture she returned to the subject of
politics.

"We talk a great deal of our convictions," she said; "but in the
meanwhile we must acknowledge that we have accomplished nothing at all.
What is the good of our meeting here two or three times a-week, meeting
in society, whispering together, corresponding in cipher, and doing all
manner of things, when everything goes on just the same as before?"

"Better give it up and join Don Giovanni and his party," returned Del
Ferice, with a sneer. "He says if a change comes he will make the best of
it. Of course, we could not do better."

"With us it is so easy," said Gouache, thoughtfully. "A handful of
students, a few paving-stones, 'Vive la Republique!' and we have a tumult
in no time."

That was not the kind of revolution in which Del Ferice proposed to have
a hand. He meditated playing a very small part in some great movement;
and when the fighting should be over, he meant to exaggerate the part he
had played, and claim a substantial reward. For a good title and twenty
thousand francs a-year he would have