"I trust, Miss Leslie," he said with a smile, "that you will forgive me for having canonised you without either papal sanction or your own."
Like a good Catholic, he put the papal sanction first and Daphne's next.
"Last autumn," continued Angelo, "I was requested by a priest of this cathedral, Father Ignatius by name, to paint a Madonna. Not thinking that you, Miss Leslie, would ever visit this place, I took your face as my model, for, pardon my boldness, I could not find a more beautiful one."
Daphne looked extremely grave.
"It is sacrilege," she said in a tone of awe. "What would your priest say if he knew of this?"
"He would pardon the sacrilege—if sacrilege it be—that gave him so fair a Madonna. If the divine Raphael introduced the heads of beggars in his delineations of patriarchs in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, may I not employ the living face in my picture?"
Daphne did not reply to this question, but, still very grave, continued:
"To be recognised by staring, gaping crowds in the streets of this town as the original of their cathedral Madonna is a kind of fame I could very well dispense with."
"They will say that the saint has left the skies to shed the sunlight of her presence on earth," he answered.
He accompanied this extravaganza with a smile, but it was a melancholy one. Clearly Daphne was not pleased with the act that had elevated her into a saint. The artist was not slow to perceive the light of triumph in my eyes, and his face darkened.