"The St. Catherine!" he repeats, with a puzzled air, "what St. Catherine? I am afraid you will think me very stupid, but I really am quite at sea."
"Do you mean to say," cry I, reddening with mortification, "that you forget—that you do not remember that St. Catherine of Palma Vecchio's in the Dresden Gallery that I always pointed out to you as having such a look of Barbara? Well, you have a short memory!"
"Have I?" he answers, dryly; "perhaps for some things; for others, I fancy that mine is a good deal longer than yours."
"It might easily be that," I answer, recovering from my temporary annoyance and laughing; "I suppose you mean for books and dates, and things of that kind. Well, you may easily beat me there. The landing of William the Conqueror, and the battle of Waterloo, were the only two dates I ever succeeded in mastering, and that was only after the struggle of years."
"Dates!" he says, impatiently, "pshaw! I was not thinking of them! I was thinking of Dresden!"
"Are you so sure that you could beat me there?" ask I, thoughtfully; "I do not know about that! I think I could stand a pretty stiff examination; but perhaps you are talking of the pictures and the names of the artists. Ah, yes! there you are right; with me they go in at one ear, and out at another. Only the other day I was racking my brain to think of the name of the man that painted the other Magdalen—not Guido's—I was telling Algy about it. Bah! what is it? I know it as well as my own."
His head is turned away from me. He does not appear to be attending.
"What is it?" I repeat; "have you forgotten too?"
"Battoni!" he answers, laconically, still keeping his face averted.
"Battoni! oh, yes! thanks—of course! so it is!—Algy" (raising my voice a little)—"Battoni!"