"My dear Count," said he, "I have a proposal to make. You must let me
employ a little of my leisure in modelling your bust. You remember what
a striking resemblance we all of us--Hilda, Miriam, and I--found between
your features and those of the Faun of Praxiteles. Then, it seemed an
identity; but now that I know your face better, the likeness is far less
apparent. Your head in marble would be a treasure to me. Shall I have
it?"

"I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome," replied the Count,
turning away his face. "It troubles me to be looked at steadfastly."

"I have observed it since we have been sitting here, though never
before," rejoined the sculptor. "It is a kind of nervousness, I
apprehend, which, you caught in the Roman air, and which grows upon you,
in your solitary life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your bust;
for I will catch the likeness and expression by side glimpses, which
(if portrait painters and bust makers did but know it) always bring home
richer results than a broad stare."

"You may take me if you have the power," said Donatello; but, even as he
spoke, he turned away his face; "and if you can see what makes me shrink
from you, you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will, but
my necessity, to avoid men's eyes. Only," he added, with a smile which
made Kenyon doubt whether he might not as well copy the Faun as model a
new bust,--"only, you know, you must not insist on my uncovering these
ears of mine!"

"Nay; I never should dream of such a thing," answered the sculptor,
laughing, as the young Count shook his clustering curls. "I could not