"It's impossible to see anything," I returned. Something dark within—it may have been a folding screen, the back of a chair, any piece of furniture, in fact—standing immediately behind the keyhole, prevented me from obtaining a glimpse of the interior.
"A cold cell to paint in during the depth of winter," remarked my uncle. "Does he work without a fire?"
"Scarcely," responded the Baronet. "A servant makes up the fire every morning, and brings in coal enough to last the day; but Angelo takes good care to stand by all the time, with a curtain drawn over his easel, and his artistic paraphernalia covered by a cloth, and does not begin work till he is alone."
The concealment displayed by Angelo over his new work of art made me only the more curious to obtain a glimpse of the studio; so I clambered up the ivy towards the Gothic casement, and peeped through its diamond panes, to find that a curtain of violet silk had been drawn across.
"Upon my word," I called out, "Angelo takes precious good care that no one shall discover his art-secret—if secret he has. There is a piece of violet silk stretched across the casement!"
"You can't open the window and get in, I suppose?" said Sir Hugh.
Mounting still higher, I stepped upon the windowsill, and, holding on to a mullion by my left hand, shook the casement with my right; but the fastenings were too secure to permit my forcing an entrance, so I scrambled down again.
"He hasn't put up that curtain exactly as a screen of concealment," remarked the Baronet, stepping backwards to take a view of it. "In this new picture of his the amphitheatre, so he tells me, is represented as being partly screened from the glare of the sun by a purple velarium. The curtain that you see up there faces the south. Angelo has no doubt been trying an experiment: studying the effect of violet-coloured rays upon the sanded floor; for he has had it sanded," the Baronet explained, "to make it resemble the pavement of an arena."
If Sir Hugh really believed that this was the reason why Angelo had covered up the window, he had greater simplicity than I gave him credit for.
As we were turning to go away, my unsatisfied curiosity induced me to take a second peep through the keyhole. An ejaculation of surprise escaped my lips, and I rose to my feet in perplexity.