constant exposure to the weather had browned his skin, and a life
of unceasing activity had strengthened his sinews and hardened his
compact frame. The clustering black curls were closely cropped,
too, while the delicate dark moustache had slightly thickened. He
had grown to be a very soldierly young fellow, straight and alert,
quick of hand and eye, inured to that perpetual readiness which is
the first characteristic of the good soldier, whether in peace or
war. The dreamy look that was so often in his face in the days
when he sat upon a high stool painting the portrait of Donna
Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression of wide-awake
curiosity in the world's doings.

Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military service
could crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had not
abandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours of
leisure from duty were passed in his studio. But the change in his
outward appearance was connected with a similar development in his
character. He himself sometimes wondered how he could have ever
taken any interest in the half-hearted political fumbling which
Donna Tullia, Ugo Del Ferice, and others of their set used to
dignify by the name of conspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas
must at that time have been deplorably confused and lamentably
unsettled. He sometimes took out the old sketch of Madame Mayer's
portrait, and setting it upon his easel, tried to realise and
bring back those times when she had sat for him. He could recall
Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressed
invectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberal
movement; but the young fellow in an old velveteen jacket who used
to talk glibly about the guillotine, about stringing-up the
clericals to street-lamps and turning the churches into popular