"Why not now?" I said, jumping to my feet. "Let us see it to-night. I shall not be able to sleep if I go to bed without seeing it."
But the Baronet shrugged his shoulders with a good-humoured smile.
"No, thank you. We are warm and comfortable here. A walk in a cold picture-gallery by the pale light of the moon is an affront to these cigars and this port. Let us defer our visit till the morning."
I was loth to wait till then. The picture had eluded us so long that I thought it quite within the range of probability for it to walk off during the night.
"Did Angelo ever speak to you of his stay at Rivoli?" said I to the Baronet.
"Never knew he had been there till you mentioned it."
"He's a native of the place. He never told you, then, of a little incident that happened in the cathedral of Rivoli?"
"You are talking Greek to me—at least, that is," coughed the Baronet, reserving to himself the credit of a classical reputation, "er—Chinese, I should say. What is the little incident to which you refer?"
I satisfied Sir Hugh's curiosity by giving him an account of Angelo's expulsion from the Communion.