“Very good logic, indeed,” answered the Cardinal.  But he looked at Anastase, and marking his delicate features and light frame, he almost wondered how the lad would look in the garb of a soldier.  “Very good logic; but, my dear Monsieur Gouache, what is to become of your art?”

“I shall not be mounting guard all day, and the Zouaves are allowed to live in their own lodgings.  I will live in my studio, and paint when I am not mounting guard.”

“And my portrait?” inquired Cardinal Antonelli, much amused.

“Your Eminence will doubtless be kind enough to manage that I may have liberty to finish it.”

“You could not put off enlisting for a week, I suppose?”

Gouache looked annoyed; he hated the idea of waiting.

“I have taken too long to make up my mind already,” he replied.  “I must make the plunge at once.  I am convinced—­your Eminence has convinced me—­that I have been very foolish.”

“I certainly never intended to convince you of that,” remarked the Cardinal, with a smile.

“Very foolish,” repeated Gouache, not heeding the interruption.  “I have talked great nonsense,—­I scarcely know why—­perhaps to try and find where the sense really lay.  I have dreamed so many dreams, so long, that I sometimes think I am morbid.  All artists are morbid, I suppose.  It is better to do anything active than to lose one’s self in the slums of a sickly imagination.”

“I agree with you,” answered the Cardinal; “but I do not think you suffered from a sickly imagination,—­I should rather call it abundant than sickly.  Frankly, I should be sorry to think that in following this new idea you were in any way injuring the great career which, I am sure, is before you; but, on the other hand, I cannot help wishing that a greater number of young men would follow your example.”

“Your Eminence approves, then?”

“Do you think you will make a good soldier?”

“Other artists have been good soldiers.  There was Cellini—­”

“Benvenuto Cellini said he made a good soldier; he said it himself, but his reputation for veracity in other matters was doubtful, to say the least.  If he did not shoot the Connetable de Bourbon, it is very certain that some one else did.  Besides, a soldier in our times should be a very different kind of man from the self-armed citizen of the time of Clement the Ninth and the aforesaid Connetable.  You will have to wear a uniform and sleep on boards in a guard-house; you will have to be up early to drill, and up late mounting guard, in wind and rain and cold.  It is hard work; I do not believe you have the constitution for it.  Nevertheless, the intention is good.  You can try it, and if you fall ill I will see that you have no difficulty in returning to your artist life.”

“I do not mean to give it up,” replied Gouache, in a tone of conviction.  “And as for my health, I am as strong as any one.”