“You mistake me, my friend,” returned Del Ferice, blandly.  “If you volunteered to perform that service to Italy, I would certainly not dissuade you.  But I would certainly not offer you my assistance.”

“Fie!  How can you talk like that of murder!” exclaimed Donna Tullia.  “Go on with your painting, Gouache, and do not be ridiculous.”

“The question of tyrannicide is marvellously interesting,” answered Anastase in a meditative tone, as he resumed his work, and glanced critically from Madame Mayer to his canvas and back again.

“It belongs to a class of actions at which Del Ferice rejoices, but in which he desires no part,” said Donna Tullia.

“It seems to me wiser to contemplate accomplishing the good result without any unnecessary and treacherous bloodshed,” answered Del Ferice, sententiously.  Again Gouache smiled in his delicate satirical fashion, and glanced at Madame Mayer, who burst into a laugh.

“Moral reflections never sound so especially and ridiculously moral as in your mouth, Ugo,” she said.

“Why?” he asked, in an injured tone.

“I am sure I do not know.  Of course, we all would like to see Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal, and Rome the capital of a free Italy.  Of course we would all like to see it accomplished without murder or bloodshed; but somehow, when you put it into words, it sounds very absurd.”

In her brutal fashion Madame Mayer had hit upon a great truth, and Del Ferice was very much annoyed.  He knew himself to be a scoundrel; he knew Madame Mayer to be a woman of very commonplace intellect; he wondered why he was not able to deceive her more effectually.  He was often able to direct her, he sometimes elicited from her some expression of admiration at his astuteness; but in spite of his best efforts, she saw through him and understood him better than he liked.

“I am sorry,” he said, “that what is honourable should sound ridiculous when it comes from me.  I like to think sometimes that you believe in me.”

“Oh, I do,” protested Donna Tullia, with a sudden change of manner.  “I was only laughing.  I think you are really in earnest.  Only, you know, nowadays, it is not the fashion to utter moralities in a severe tone, with an air of conviction.  A little dash of cynicism—­you know, a sort of half sneer—­is so much more chic; it gives a much higher idea of the morality, because it conveys the impression that it is utterly beyond you.  Ask Gouache—­”

“By all means,” said the artist, squeezing a little more red from the tube upon his palette, “one should always sneer at what one cannot reach.  The fox, you remember, called the grapes sour.  He was probably right, for he is the most intelligent of animals.”

“I would like to hear what Giovanni had to say about those grapes,” remarked Donna Tullia.

“Oh, he sneered in the most fashionable way,” answered Del Ferice.  “He would have pleased you immensely.  He said that he would be ruined by a change of government, and that he thought it his duty to fight against it.  He talked a great deal about the level of the Tiber, and landed property, and the duties of gentlemen.  And he ended by saying he would make the best of any change that happened to come about, like a thoroughgoing egotist, as he is!”