“Show the duke your little gallery,” he said in a low tone to Phil. “You’re too modest—you mustn’t hide your light under a bushel.”
“Pshaw! he wouldn’t appreciate it,” said Phil.
They stood before the Morgana painting. Helia, strongly impressed by the luxury of the studio, looked around with astonishment. She remembered Phil’s beginnings in his attic by the quays of the Seine.
The duke turned toward him: “Superb! It is very beautiful! Allow me to congratulate you, Monsieur Phil!”
Phil bowed.
Conrad di Tagliaferro, Duke of Morgania, was a grand seigneur, who left his duchy to take care of itself, and passed half his time in his Paris mansion. His people believed him to be quite taken up with politics, discussing mordicus with the representatives of the Great Powers, and securing support against the coming storm. For the duchy was on the banks of the Adriatic, lower than Montenegro, and backed up against Albania, where the clouds threatened. The duke, meanwhile, went about with Caracal, his professor of elegant vice, and his handsome presence was a part of Tout-Paris.
“Your picture is a masterpiece, Monsieur Phil,” the duke went on. “It would be impossible to interpret better the legend of my ancestress, Morgana. It will hang well in the great hall of the castle, above the ducal throne—I see it from here. You have quite caught what I wished, and I am grateful to you.”
The great painting took up a whole side of the studio, and its effect was superb under the light, which fell in floods. It was a decorative work, which, from the first, impressed the beholder by its look of strangeness.
Phil was familiar with the mirage which is peculiar to the Adriatic Sea, and which is known as the Fata Morgana.
In the morning oftenest, but sometimes at evening, you suddenly perceive in the sky images of various things—of ruined towers and castles, which crumble and change and take on prodigious shapes. The dwellers of the coast call the phenomenon the Fata Morgana; their superstitious ideas lead them to see in it the enchantments of a fairy (fata), whereas it is simply an effect of the mirage caused by the heating of the sea. This was the moment which Phil had chosen for his picture.