Italy," interrupted the artist. "I would like to paint
Garibaldi. He has a fine head."

"I will ask him to sit to you when he comes here."

"When he comes I shall be here no longer," answered Gouache. "They will
whitewash the Corso, they will make a restaurant of the Colosseum, and
they will hoist the Italian flag on the cross of St. Peter's. Then I will
go to Constantinople; there will still be some years before Turkey is
modernised."

"Artists are hopeless people," said Del Ferice. "They are utterly
illogical, and it is impossible to deal with them. If you like old
cities, why do you not like old women? Why would you not rather paint
Donna Tullia's old Countess than Donna Tullia herself?"

"That is precisely the opposite case," replied Anastase, quietly. "The
works of man are never so beautiful as when they are falling to decay;
the works of God are most beautiful when they are young. You might as
well say that because wine improves with age, therefore horses do
likewise. The faculty of comparison is lacking in your mind, my dear Del
Ferice, as it is generally lacking in the minds of true patriots. Great
reforms and great revolutions are generally brought about by people of
fierce and desperate convictions, like yours, who go to extreme lengths,
and never know when to stop. The quintessence of an artist's talent is
precisely that faculty of comparison, that gift of knowing when the thing
he is doing corresponds as nearly as he can make it with the thing he has
imagined."

There was no tinge of sarcasm in Gouache's voice as he imputed to Del
Ferice the savage enthusiasm of a revolutionist. But when Gouache, who
was by no means calm by nature, said anything in a particularly gentle
tone, there was generally a sting in it, and Del Ferice reflected upon
the mean traffic in stolen information by which he got his livelihood,
and was ashamed. Somehow, too, Donna Tullia felt that the part she
fancied herself playing was contemptible enough when compared with the
hard work, the earnest purpose, and the remarkable talent of the young
artist. But though she felt her inferiority, she would have died rather
than own it, even to Del Ferice. She knew that for months she had talked
with Del Ferice, with Valdarno, with Casalverde, even with the melancholy
and ironical Spicca, concerning conspiracies and deeds of darkness of all
kinds, and she knew that she and they might go on talking for ever in the
same strain without producing