Alpha Book

He had been touching it when Giovanni entered. "That is all I
know, and I do not know that thoroughly. I wish I did. She is a
wonderful subject."
Sant' Ilario gazed at the picture in silence.
"Are her eyes really like these?" he asked at length.
"Much finer."
"And her mouth?"
"Much larger," answered Gouache with a smile.
"She is bad," said Giovanni with conviction, and he thought of the
Signor Aragno.
"Women are never bad," observed Gouache with a thoughtful air. "Some are
less angelic than others. You need only tell them all so to assure
yourself of the fact."
"I daresay. What is this person? French, Spanish--South American?"
"I have not the least idea. She is not French, at all events."
"Excuse me--does your wife know her?"
Gouache glanced quickly at his visitor's face.
"No."
Gouache was a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for
reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the
simple negation of a fact. But the effort was not altogether successful.


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