universal harmony. In a full light upon the wall hangs a single silk
carpet of wonderful tints, famous in the history of Eastern collections,
and upon it is set at a slanting angle a single priceless Damascus
blade--a sword to possess which an Arab or a Circassian would commit
countless crimes. Anastase Gouache is magnificent in all his tastes and
in all his ways. His studio and his dwelling are his only estate, his
only capital, his only wealth, and he does not take the trouble to
conceal the fact. The very idea of a fixed income is as distasteful to
him as the possibility of possessing it is distant and visionary. There
is always money in abundance, money for Faustina's horses and carriages,
money for Gouache's select dinners, money for the expensive fancies of
both. The paint pot is the mine, the brush is the miner's pick, and the
vein has never failed, nor the hand trembled in working it. A golden
youth, a golden river flowing softly to the red gold sunset of the
end--that is life as it seems to Anastase and Faustina.

On the morning which opens this chronicle, Anastase was standing before
his canvas, palette and brushes in hand, considering the nature of the
human face in general and of young Orsino's face in particular.

"I have known your father and mother for centuries," observed the
painter with a fine disregard of human limitations. "Your father is the
brown type of a dark man, and your mother is the olive type of a dark
woman. They are no more alike than a Red Indian and an Arab, but you are
like both. Are you brown or are you olive, my friend? That is the
question. I would like to see you angry, or in love, or losing at play.
Those things bring out the real complexion."

Orsino laughed and showed a remarkably solid set of teeth. But he did
not find anything to say.