"What of that? Is it a crime in your eyes?"
"No," he said, thoughtfully, "but it makes her useless for artistic purposes. I tried to pose her the other day,--in vain. She might do for Juliet's nurse, or for a modern fortune-teller, but that is not my line. I find plenty of handsome faces among these Venetians, and fine shoulders, too, but nothing more. Their bodies are too long, their legs too short; there are no sweeping lines, no grace of movement. And when one finds a model whose limbs are long enough, she is like a stork. I have a deal of trouble in this respect. When I was painting 'Spring,'--the picture that Countess Erika does not like,--I was in despair because I could find no model for my female figure. Then one day on the Rialto I found a person, no longer young, rouged, but magnificently formed,--as tall as Countess Erika, only not----"
He broke off and grew very red. A moment afterwards, however, he had forgotten his embarrassment in a new inspiration. At the door of the studio Erika lifted her arm to pluck a spray of wistaria.
"Stay just as you are, for one instant, Countess!" he cried, and, rushing into his studio, he returned instantly with a sketch-book and a basket-chair. The latter he placed in the shade for the old Countess, and then began to sketch rapidly.
"Only look at that curve!" he exclaimed to the grandmother. "It is music! And the line of the hips!"
His manner of unceasingly dwelling upon the beauty or ugliness of the human body, the exact analysis which he was perpetually making of its structure, in connection with his profession, was at times offensive. But neither of the ladies took exception to it, Erika partly from inexperience and partly from flattered vanity, the old Countess because her sensitiveness in this respect had become dulled of late, and also because Lozoncyi expressed himself in so naïve a fashion that he seemed at the worst to be merely guilty of a breach of good taste. One had to know him very intimately to discover what a profound impression upon his inmost nature this perpetual study of the human figure had produced.
"How thoroughly you understand how to dress yourself!" he exclaimed, continuing to look fixedly at the girl, who wore a gown of some white woollen stuff, with a large straw hat trimmed with heavy old Venetian lace.
"I have half a mind to paint you thus, instead of in evening dress," he murmured. "But no; your portrait should be in full dress. Only, be generous; we will begin the portrait to-morrow, give me an hour for myself to-day: I want to make a water-colour sketch of you. Does it tire you too much to stretch your arm out so far?"
"A woman does not grow tired when she is conscious of being admired," the old Countess declared; "but the situation is less entertaining for me. Have you not some book to give me?"
Erika grew weary at last, in spite of the admiration lavished upon her by Lozoncyi while he sketched. The painter improvised a lunch for his guests beneath a mulberry-tree, upon a little rickety table. It was excellently prepared and delicately served, and he enjoyed seeing the ladies do ample justice to it. Lucrezia had just served the coffee, and was standing with a smiling face and arms akimbo, listening to the old Countess's praise of her skill in cookery, when there came a knock at the door.