"Six years ago, I think, grandmother."
"Six years ago, then," the Countess went on. "It was in Berlin, where you were exhibiting two pictures, one before a curtain, the other behind a curtain. I saw both; and I have believed in your talent ever since,--which has not, however, prevented me from being surprised by your last picture in the Circolo artistico."
"You are very kind."
"One thing I should like to know: do you fancy there are trees in full leaf in hell?"
"What?--in hell?" asked the artist, lifting his eyebrows. "So far as I can tell, I have never pictured hell to myself; although I have more than once felt as if I had been there."
"Why, then, did you paint Francesca da Rimini after that fashion?"
"Francesca da Rimini?" Again he looked at her in surprise.
"The picture in the Circolo," the old lady persisted. "But"--and her tone was much cooler--"perhaps I am mistaken, and the picture is not yours?"
"No, no," he replied, laughing. "The picture to which you refer is certainly mine, Countess, but my picture-dealer invented the title for it. I never for a moment intended to paint that most attractive of all sinning women."
"What did your picture mean, then?"