"If you will permit me to say it, Madame," he observed, "I have never
seen eyes like yours."

He endeavoured to lose himself in their depths as he spoke. Madame
d'Aragona was not in the least annoyed by the remark, nor by the look.

"What is there so very unusual about my eyes?" she enquired. The smile
grew a little more faint and thoughtful but did not disappear.

"In the first place, I have never seen eyes of a golden-yellow colour."

"Tigers have yellow eyes," observed Madame d'Aragona.

"My acquaintance with that animal is at second hand--slight, to say the
least."

"You have never shot one?"

"Never, Madame. They do not abound in Rome--nor even, I believe, in
Albano. My father killed one when he was a young man."

"Prince Saracinesca?"

"Sant' Ilario. My grandfather is still alive."

"How splendid! I adore strong races."

"It is very interesting," observed Gouache, poking the stick of a brush
into the eye of his picture. "I have painted three generations of the
family, I who speak to you, and I hope to paint the fourth if Don Orsino