It was ever thus with Angelo. No matter what subject was being discussed he always contrived to drift down to art before long.
"What a pretty girl that is telling her beads before yonder crucifix!" said Daphne.
"Yes," replied the Italian, surveying the girl's figure with his artist's eye. "She would make a beautiful model for my 'Modesta the Martyr'—if I had not a fairer form in view," he murmured in a lower tone.
Impatiently I turned my eyes in the direction of that sentinel my uncle, and found him still on the watch at the sacristy-door. It swung open at last.
To my disappointment, however, neither priest nor penitent issued forth, but a man who had every appearance of being one of the attendants of the cathedral. He was walking over to us.
My heart beat fiercely. The mystery of last Christmas Eve was going to be cleared up!
The belief in my own mind that the attendant was going to invite me to the priest's room in order to interview the aged penitent was so great that I had actually risen to meet him—an unnecessary action on my part, for he passed by without regarding me, and, walking up to Angelo's picture of the Madonna, he removed it from the wall, and was preparing to depart with it, when he was stopped by the artist.
"What are you going to do with that picture, Paolo?" inquired Angelo, to whom the attendant was evidently well known.
"I am taking it to Father Ignatius' room," replied Paolo.