The other muttered something like a half assent, and the former speaker continued, "And you were both of you wrong. I wanted to see the finished picture of which I possessed the sketch--the beautiful Flora--whose original was my grandmother. I cannot tell you the intense longing I had to see the features that pertained to one who belonged to me; a man must be as utterly desolate as I am, to comprehend the craving I felt to have something--anything that might stand to me in place of family. It was this led me to Castello, and it was this that made me, when I crossed the threshold, indifferent to all the splendors of the place, and only occupied with one thought, one wish--to see the fresco in the Octagon Tower--poor old Giacomo's great work--the picture of his beautiful daughter. And was she not beautiful? I ask you, Philip, had Raphael himself ever such a model for sweetness of expression? Come, come. You were just as wild as myself in your enthusiasm as you stood before her; and it was only by a silly jest that you could repress the agitation you were so ashamed of."
"I remember I told you that the family had terribly degenerated since her day."
"And yet you tried to trace a likeness between us."
"You won't say that I succeeded," said he, with a laugh.
"It was then as I stood there gazing on her, thinking of her sad story, that I bethought me what an ignoble part it was I played to compromise the rights that she had won, and how unworthy I was to be the descendant of the beautiful Enrichetta."
"You are about the only man I ever met who was in love with his grandmother."
"Call it how you like, her lovely face has never left me since I saw it there."
"And yet your regret implies that you are only sorry not to have made a better bargain."
"No, Philip: my regret is not to have stood out for terms that must have been refused to me; I wish I had asked for the 'impossible.' I tried to make a laughing matter of it when I began, but I cannot--I cannot. I have got the feeling that I have been selling my birthright."
"And you regret that the mess of pottage has not been bigger."
"There's the impossibility in making a friend of an Englishman! It is the sordid side of everything he will insist on turning uppermost. Had I told a Frenchman what I have told you, he would have lent me his whole heart in sympathy."