"Do you think so? Perhaps he is. He painted me some time ago. I was not
very well satisfied. But he has talent."

Donna Tullia had never forgiven the artist for not putting enough soul
into the picture he had painted of her when she was a very young widow.

"He has a great reputation," said Maria Consuelo, "and I think he will
succeed very well with me. Besides, I am grateful to him. He and his
painting have been a pleasant episode in my short stay here."

"Really, I should hardly have thought you could find it worth your while
to come all the way to Rome to be painted by Gouache," observed Donna
Tullia. "But of course, as I say, he has talent."

"This woman is rich," she said to herself. "The wives of diplomatists do
not allow themselves such caprices, as a rule. I wonder who she is?"

"Great talent," assented Maria Consuelo. "And great charm, I think."

"Ah well--of course--I daresay. We Romans cannot help thinking that for
an artist he is a little too much occupied in being a gentleman--and for
a gentleman he is quite too much an artist."

The remark was not original with Donna Tullia, but had been reported to
her as Spicca's, and Spicca had really said something similar about
somebody else.

"I had not got that impression," said Maria Consuelo, quietly.