I have read of what Beaudelaire calls “the beauty disease,” and there is no place where the young may be more sure of getting it than in these Old-World art-galleries. Gwendolyn and her mother had a mild attack of this disease, “this lust of the art faculties which eats up the moral like a cancer.” The monstrous excesses of the idle rich are symptoms of its progress. In Europe the church, the aristocracy, and the art students have caught the fever of it. “How lovely! How tender!” said Gwendolyn, as we stood before the Danaë of Correggio. “How lovely! How tenderloin!” I echoed, by way of an antitoxin. Here was a fifteenth-century ideal of female attractiveness radiating an utterly morbid sensuality. The picture reeked and groaned with passion. Young men and women from towns and villages in our land who sat industriously copying the works of old masters were turning money newly made in Zanesville, Keokuk, Cedar Rapids, and like places into weird imitations of Correggio, Titian, and Botticelli. Well, I expect that they were having a good time, but I would rather see them copying the tints and forms of nature near their own doors than worshiping the kings of art, which is another form of the title craze. Here we met again the elderly lady with the beautiful feet who had crossed on our steamer--Mrs. Fraley from Terre Haute. She presented Betsey and me to Miss Muriel Fraley, her grandniece, a good-looking miss of about twenty-three, who was copying the Danaë. Mrs. Fraley had found new and delightful astonishments in Italy, the chief of which was this Europeanized niece. She drew me aside and whispered: “She is a lovely child! Just notice the aristocratic pose of her head.” I allowed that I could see it, for I had to, and ran my mental hand into the grab-bag for something to say and pulled out: “I like that blond hair--of--hers.” I observed, as the girl looked up, that her cheeks were just a bit too red and that her eyes had been slightly emphasized. They did not need it, either, for they were capital eyes to start with. “And she is as good as she is beautiful,” the old lady went on, in a low tone of strict confidence. “And, you know, since she came here a real count has made love to her.” “A count!” I exclaimed. There was a touch of awe in her tone as she said, “Belongs to one of the oldest families in Italy!” I cleared my throat and thought of death and funerals and comic supplements and such mournful things for safety. “I want you to meet him at dinner,” the good soul went on. “Where are you stopping?” “At the Grand Hotel.” “We are near there, at the Pension Pirroni. You and Mrs. Potter must dine with us.” I gradually separated myself from Mrs. Fraley and hastened to join my friends. I found them with startled looks in a group of the ancient marble gods and others who lived before the invention of trousers.