"It only depends on you—" Orsino began.
"Oh, of course! To make acquaintances, to show myself a little everywhere—it is simple enough. But it wearies me—until one is caught up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only bores oneself, and I may leave so soon. Decidedly it is not worth the trouble. Is it?"
She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice. Orsino laughed.
"How can you ask that question!" he exclaimed. "Only let the trouble be ours."
"Ah! I said you were enthusiastic." She shook her head, and rose from her seat. "It is time for me to go. We have done nothing this morning, and it is all your fault, Prince."
"I am distressed—I will not intrude upon your next sitting."
"Oh—as far as that is concerned—" She did not finish the sentence, but took up the neglected tiger's skin from the chair on which it lay.
She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers. She came very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling.
"Admirable!" exclaimed Gouache. "It is impossible to tell where the woman ends and the tiger begins. Let me draw you like that."
"Oh no! Not for anything in the world."