‘Have you a taste for art?’ demanded Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy, turning to her with magnificent suavity. ‘I used to be very fond of drawing.’ ‘Genre is my style,’ he pursued, almost overthrowing her gravity by the original of his aunt’s imitation. ‘I took lessons of old Barbouille--excellent master. Truth and nature, those were his maxims; and from the moment I heard them, I said, “This is my man.” We used positively to live in the Borghese. There!’ as he walked backwards, after adjusting his production in the best light. ‘A snipe,’ said Albinia. ‘A snipe that I killed in the Pontine marshes.’ ‘There is very good shooting about Anxur,’ said Albinia. ‘You have been at Rome?’ He permitted himself a little animation at discovering any one within the pale of civilization. ‘For one fortnight in the course of a galloping tour with my two brothers,’ said Albinia. ‘All the Continent in one long vacation!’ ‘That was much to be regretted. It is my maxim to go through every museum thoroughly.’ ‘I can’t regret,’ said Albinia. ‘I should be very sorry to give up my bright indistinct haze of glorious memories, though I was too young to appreciate all I saw.’ ‘For my part, I have grown up among works of art. My whole existence has been moulded on them, and I feel an inexpressible void without them. I shall be most happy to introduce you into my atelier, and show you my notes on the various Musees. I preserved them merely as a trifling memorial; but many connoisseurs have told me that I ought to print them as a Catalogue raisonnee, for private circulation, of course. I should be sorry to interfere with Murray, but on the whole I decided otherwise: I should be so much bored with applications.’ Mrs. Dusautoy’s wicked glance had so nearly demolished the restraint on her friend’s dimples, that she turned her back on her, and commended the finish of a solitary downy feather that lay detached beside the bird. ‘My maxim is truth to nature, at any cost of pains,’ said the youth, not exactly gratified, for homage was his native element, but graciously proceeding to point out the merits of the composition. Albinia’s composure could endure no more, and she took her leave, Mr. Dusautoy coming down the hill with her to repeat, and this time somewhat wistfully, ‘A fine lad, is he not, poor fellow?’ With perfect sincerity, she could praise his good looks. ‘He has had a quantity of sad stuff thrust on him by the people who have been about his poor mother,’ said Mr. Dusautoy. ‘She could never bear to part with him, and no wonder, poor thing; and she must have let a very odd sort of people get about her abroad--they’ve flattered that poor lad to the top of his bent, you see, but he’s a very good boy for all that, very warm-hearted.’ ‘He must be very amiable for his mother to have been able to manage him all this while.’