The women of the place, having little else to do, assembled at their doors to see the rare spectacle of foreign visitors. All interest, however, was centred in Daphne: fingers were freely pointed at her, and she seemed to be an object of animated conversation after we had passed by.
Arrived at the cathedral, Angelo paused by the holy water at the porch, and, after making the sign of the cross, led the way into the building. To my surprise, Daphne allowed her High Church tendencies to carry her so far as to imitate the artist, dipping her pretty finger in the lustral font, and tracing a wet cross on her forehead, while she whispered with a smile to me, "When one is at Rome, one must do as Rome does."
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that if the water had not been previously consecrated, it certainly was now after the touch of her hand; but this action of hers was a going over to the enemy, so I frowned under pretence of being a Protestant consumed with a zeal for orthodoxy.
"You will be taking the veil next, Miss Leslie," I remarked loftily.
"Miss Leslie? Just hear him, papa! Not Daphne," she whispered with a sweet smile, holding up her little gloved hand, with the second finger crossed over the first, to indicate that it symbolised my frame of mind at that particular moment, as there is no denying that it did.
We rejoined Angelo within the precincts of the cathedral. The interior was a marvel of art, and with its dim magnificence mysteriously coloured by the subdued light of the stained casements it seemed more like the splendid dream of some Gothic architect than an actual reality in marble and mosaic.
"There is my picture!" exclaimed the artist; and, hastening forward to a painting of the Madonna suspended from the cathedral wall and before which waxen tapers were burning, he assumed a kneeling attitude.
"From the days of Pygmalion downwards," I whispered to my uncle, "what artist has not fallen in love with his own work and—worshipped it?"
Daphne's thoughts were more charitable than my own:
"I always think Catholics are more devout than we are."