"'The Fall of Cæsar?' Oh, how interesting. What did he fall from?" she asked with an assumed ignorance. She uttered this rather loudly; and then, dropping her voice, she whispered in Daphne's ear: "Now hear Mr. Fontalwater give us a lecture. He's sure to. Mad on history. Read nothing else from his cradle upwards."
And sure enough the Reverend Cyprian, on hearing her question, at once proceeded to satisfy her curiosity.
"Caius Julius Cæsar, Miss Wyville, was stabbed by conspirators in the Senate House at Rome, and fell at the base of Pompey's statue covered with twenty-three wounds. According to Plutarch the conspirators were Marcus Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Cassius, Casca——"
"My goodness, Mr. Fontalwater, what a memory you have!" cried Florrie, cutting him short with a look of mock admiration. "You surely don't expect me to remember all those names? You are worse than my old governess. Have you introduced all those classical fogies into your picture, Mr. Vasari?"
"No, Miss Wyville; my picture contains but two figures—Cæsar lying dead at the foot of Pompey's statue. I have represented this statue pointing downward with its lance, figuratively intimating thereby the fate that befalls a too lofty ambition. Personal vanity has induced me to represent Pompey with my own features, a proceeding for which I can quote a notable precedent—the immortal Haydon, who, in his famous picture, 'Curtius leaping into the Gulf,' gave to the Roman hero his own countenance—a fact mournfully prophetic of his own sad downward destiny."
"And so," replied Florrie, "in the figure of Pompey you represent yourself as triumphing over the dead. Fie, Mr. Vasari!"
"I am pointing a moral, you see."
"What a curious idea to introduce one's own face into a picture! I should not like to offend you: you would paint some wicked historical woman, and then give her my features. But tell me, have you given to your Cæsar the face of a friend? Come, don't deny it; I am sure you have. Whose features served as a model? Oh, do tell us!"
"You are mistaken," he replied. "I did, indeed, procure an ancient bust of Cæsar, but finally I abandoned sculptured fact for my own imagination, and endeavoured to paint ambition's ideal face."
"I am quite dying to see it," said Florrie. "Is it true what they say, Mr. Vasari, that your way of painting is a secret?"