‘There is hardly a trace here, if any, that you are a foreigner, and have lived abroad most of your time,’ he said, laughing. ‘I speak, of course, from an English point of view.’ ‘What a fine irony!’ observed Mr. Hamilton carelessly. Hans looked nettled. Fulvia said he was right. ‘So far as this room goes, at any rate,’ she added. ‘But Mrs. Hastings knows that I have things upstairs, in my own sitting-room.’ ‘For example?’ ‘Oh,’ said Fulvia very gently, but with a change in her voice for all that, ‘two of Melozzo da Forli’s angels.’ ‘Those in the Sacristy dei Canonici, do you mean?’ asked Hans eagerly. ‘Yes, the divinely sentimental one, and the one with a drum--a kind of drum; do you remember? I have other things, too. Some of those white angels which are in one of the chapels, a broken-down place belonging to S. Gregorio Magno. Do you remember those, too?’ ‘Do I remember?’ he again repeated. ‘Per Dio! do I remember?’ ‘I should never have seen those pictures but for Mrs. Hastings,’ continued Fulvia. ‘I don’t think Roman girls as a rule know much of what there is all around them in their own city. Even Bep----’ She stopped suddenly and crimsoned. There was a silence. Even Fulvia was embarrassed. Minna came to the rescue by asking Hans about his travels of last year. He related some of his adventures in out-of-the-way places, and said carelessly that he thought of going soon to the Caucasus, where there was magnificent scenery, and of there making a series of landscape and costume studies, bringing them home, and exhibiting them in London. ‘Of course I should make them very realistic and very bizarre,’ he added; ‘that is the only road to name and fortune now. Of course, too, if I went, I should have to stay an awfully long time to accomplish what I want to do.’ Another pause. Minna wondered if it was only her excited imagination which saw a leaden pallor overspread Fulvia’s face. It was Mr. Hamilton who at last asked, in a dry kind of voice: ‘Should you go for pleasure exactly?’ ‘For pleasure and for art,’ replied Hans promptly. ‘For what else should I go?’ ‘There might be many reasons,’ was the reply, in a tone of profound indifference. Yet to this indifference there was, as it were, an edge which seemed in some way to pique or offend Hans. He rose suddenly from his chair, observing abruptly: ‘I cannot tell what on earth you mean, Hamilton.’ Then he stood before the window which looked across the park. ‘From here,’ he observed, in a strangled kind of voice, ‘one can see the trees of your garden, Minna.’ ‘What a discovery! what a revelation to me!’ said she, laughing. ‘Have you only just found it out?’ ‘Doubt is cast upon everything that I say,’ exclaimed Hans, in a tone of annoyance. ‘Were you aware of those trees, Mrs. Marchmont?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Coming to the edge of the wood, one might signal, if necessary, to the Hall. Did you never find it unpleasant, Minna, when the Parkynsons were here?’