suggestion.

"It would be appropriate," replied Madame d'Aragona. "The Sphynx in the
Desert. Rome is a desert to me."

"It only depends on you--" Orsino began.

"Oh, of course! To make acquaintances, to show myself a little
everywhere--it is simple enough. But it wearies me--until one is caught
up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only
bores oneself, and I may leave so soon. Decidedly it is not worth the
trouble. Is it?"

She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice. Orsino
laughed.

"How can you ask that question!" he exclaimed. "Only let the trouble be
ours."

"Ah! I said you were enthusiastic." She shook her head, and rose from
her seat. "It is time for me to go. We have done nothing this morning,
and it is all your fault, Prince."

"I am distressed--I will not intrude upon your next sitting."

"Oh--as far as that is concerned--" She did not finish the sentence, but
took up the neglected tiger's skin from the chair on which it lay.

She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her
hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers. She came
very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling.

"Admirable!" exclaimed Gouache. "It is impossible to tell where the
woman ends and the tiger begins. Let me draw you like that."

"Oh no! Not for anything in the world."

She turned away quickly and dropped the skin from her shoulders.

"You will not stay a little longer? You will not let me try?" Gouache
seemed disappointed.

"Impossible," she answered, putting on her hat and beginning to arrange
her veil before a mirror.

Orsino watched her as she stood, her arms uplifted, in an attitude which
is almost always graceful, even for an otherwise ungraceful woman.
Madame d'Aragona was perhaps a little too short, but she was justly
proportioned and appeared to be rather slight, though the tight-fitting
sleeves of her frock betrayed a remarkably well turned arm. Not seeing
her face, one might not have singled her out of many as a very striking
woman, for she had neither the stateliness of Orsino's mother, nor the
enchanting grace which distinguished Gouache's wife. But no one could
look into her eyes without feeling that she was very far from being an
ordinary woman.

"Quite impossible," she repeated, as she tucked in the ends of her veil
and then turned upon the two men. "The next sitting? Whenever you
like--to-morrow--t