To serve a foreign power!  How dreadful!  And as for the Russians, they are all heretics.’  Perhaps they are.  I will try diplomacy.  ’What?  Sacrifice your convictions?  Become the blind instrument of a scheming, dishonest ministry?  It is unworthy of a Saracinesca!’ I will think no more about it.  Let me be a lawyer and enter public life.  ’A lawyer indeed!  Will you wrangle in public with notaries’ sons, defend murderers and burglars, and take fees like the old men who write letters for the peasants under a, green umbrella in the street?  It would be almost better to turn musician and give concerts.’  ‘The Church, perhaps?’ I suggest.  ’The Church?  Are you not the heir, and will you not be the head of the family some day?  You must be mad.’  ’Then give me a sum of money and let me try my luck with my cousin San Giacinto.’  ’Business?  If you make money it is a degradation, and with these new laws you cannot afford to lose it.  Besides, you will have enough of business when you have to manage your estates.’  So all my questions are answered, and I am condemned at twenty to be a farmer for my natural life.  I say so.  ’A farmer, forsooth!  Have you not the world before you?  Have you not received the most liberal education?  Are you not rich?  How can you take such a narrow view!  Come out to the Villa and look at those young thoroughbreds, and afterwards we will drop in at the club before dinner.  Then there is that reception at the old Principessa Befana’s to-night, and the Duchessa della Seecatura is also at home.’  That is my life, Monsieur Gouache.  There you have the question, the answer and the result.  Admit that it is not gay.”

“It is very serious, on the contrary,” answered Gouache who had listened to the detached Jeremiah with more curiosity and interest than he often shewed.

“I see nothing for it, but for you to fall in love without losing a single moment.”

Orsino laughed a little harshly.

“I am in the humour, I assure you,” he answered.

“Well, then—­what are you waiting for?” enquired Gouache, looking at him.

“What for?  For an object for my affections, of course.  That is rather necessary under the circumstances.”

“You may not wait long, if you will consent to stay here another quarter of an hour,” said Anastase with a laugh.  “A lady is coming, whose portrait I am painting—­an interesting woman—­tolerably beautiful—­rather mysterious—­here she is, you can have a good look at her, before you make up your mind.”

Anastase took the half-finished portrait of Orsino from the easel and put another in its place, considerably further advanced in execution.  Orsino lit a cigarette in order to quicken his judgment, and looked at the canvas.