"Well Zini, are you beginning to like our home?" said Truyn, propping his elbows upon the white garden table, between himself and his wife. He looked so contented, so proud of his possessions, so triumphant, that Zinka could not refrain from teasing him a little. "Taken all in all, yes," she said indifferently, "but then taken all in all, I should like Siberia, with you and Ella." "Zinka! I must confess,"--Truyn's face assumed a disturbed and almost offended expression, "I must say that I cannot understand how any one can compare Rautschin to a place of exile!" "I did not mean to do so, rest assured," Zinka said, "I think your Rautschin very delightful, I should only like to alter a few details." "I cannot abide improvements," growled Truyn, "it is only the Caprianis and Company, who must always be beautifying everything old--that is destroying it. I think an old place should be left as it is, with all its characteristic defects--to try to improve them, seems to me like trying to correct the drawing of a Giotto or a Cimabue." "I can understand a respect for the old mis-drawings," Zinka rejoined quietly, "but does one owe the same respect to modern retouching, to the vandalism that has made clumsy additions to an old picture?" "Hm!" Truyn gazed thoughtfully around him--"no, in fact. It is remarkable that you are always right, you little witch. Now be frank Zini; what exactly would you like to have different? So far as my veneration and my finances permit, you shall have your will." Zinka pointed to the lawn that lay before them, terribly disfigured by bright red and yellow arabesques. "I think that confectioner's ornamentation there almost as ugly as the carpet-gardening at the Villa Albani," she said, "don't you?" Truyn ran his hands through his hair, "Well, yes,"--he meekly admitted after a pause, "but I cannot possibly alter that. Old Kraus, to surprise me, has taken infinite pains to portray our crest on the lawn--I had to praise him for his brilliant idea, however hideous I thought the thing, don't you see, Zini?" "That alters the case entirely," Zinka admitted. "I would not hurt faithful old Kraus for the world. But"--she pointed to the basin of a fountain, the shape of which was particularly ugly--"old Kraus could not have designed that basin--that might be cleared away!" Truyn looked thoroughly discomfited. "The basin is a horror," he confessed, "but I cannot help saying a good word for it. It is endeared to me by youthful associations--if only because when I was a boy of twelve, I was very nearly drowned in it." "Oh then indeed ...." Zinka shrugged her shoulders, with a humourous air of resignation. "I now hardly dare to object to the green shutters," she went on, "for if, as in view of their colour is highly probable, they gave you opthalmia, some thirty years ago--it would ...."