ing down the hall with a preoccupied air, while his German
friend kept at his side and watched him eagerly.

"What! the Geistlicher? He looks more like an uncle--a more useful sort
of relation."

"He is not my uncle. I tell you he is my second cousin," said
Ladislaw, with some irritation.

"Schon, schon. Don't be snappish. You are not angry with me for
thinking Mrs. Second-Cousin the most perfect young Madonna I ever saw?"

"Angry? nonsense. I have only seen her once before, for a couple of
minutes, when my cousin introduced her to me, just before I left
England. They were not married then. I didn't know they were coming
to Rome."

"But you will go to see them now--you will find out what they have for
an address--since you know the name. Shall we go to the post? And you
could speak about the portrait."

"Confound you, Naumann! I don't know what I shall do. I am not so
brazen as you."

"Bah! that is because you are dilettantish and amateurish. If you were
an artist, you would think of Mistress Second-Cousin as antique form
animated by Christian sentiment--a sort of Christian Antigone--sensuous
force controlled by spiritual passion."

"Yes, and that your painting her was the chief outcome of her
existence--the divinity passing into higher completeness and all but
exhausted in the act of covering your bit of canvas. I am amateurish
if you like: I do _not_ think that all the universe is straining
towards the obscure significance of your pictures."

"But it is, my dear!--so far as it is straining through me, Adolf
Naumann: that stands firm," said the good-natured painter, putting a
hand on Ladislaw's shoulder, and not in the least disturbed by the
unaccountable touch of ill-humor in his tone. "See now! My existence
presupposes the existence of the whole universe--does it _not?_ and my
function is to paint--and as a painter I have a conception which is
altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a
subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards
that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth
in the shape of me--not true?"

"But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwart
it?--the case is a little less simple then."

"Not at all: the result of the struggle is the same thing--picture or
no picture--logically."

Will could not resist this imperturbable temper, and the cloud in his
face broke into sunshiny laughter.