Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/101

Rh lips, eyebrows nearly joined, and an expression that was both haughty and endearing. Underneath was her coat of arms, surmounted by a ducal coronet. But what struck me most was the dress, which even to the powder was like that of my father's bacchante.

I was holding the portrait in my hand when the Marquise entered.

"Exactly like his father!" she cried, coming towards me. "Ah, you French! you French! Hardly arrived before he seizes upon 'Madam Lucrezia.'"

I hastened to make excuses for my impertinence, and began to praise at random the  of Leonardo, which I had been so bold as to lift out of its place.

"It is indeed a Leonardo," said the Marquise, "and it is the portrait of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. Of all my pictures it was the one your father admired most. . .. But, good heavens! what a resemblance! I think I see your father as he was twenty-five years ago. How is he? What is he doing? And will he not come to see us at Rome some time?"

Although the Marquise did not wear either tiger skin or powdered hair, at the first glance, and with my natural quickness of perception, I recognized in her my father's bacchante. Some