"I do not need any patronage, Florian," she said simply yet with a little coldness, "You know that I should resent it were it offered to me. If my work is not good in itself, no 'royal' approval can make it so. Queen Margherita visits me as a friend—not as a patron."
"There now! I have vexed you!" And Florian took her hand and kissed it. "Forgive me, sweetest!—Look at me—give me a smile!—Ah! That is kind!" and he conveyed an expression of warm tenderness into his eyes as Angela turned her charming face upon him, softened and radiant with the quick affection which always moved her at his voice and caress. "I spoke foolishly! Of course my Angela could not be patronised—she is too independent and gifted. I am very glad the Queen is coming!"
"The Queen is coming?" echoed Gherardi, who just then advanced. "Here? To see Donna Sovrani's picture? Ah, that will be an excellent advertisement! But it would have been far better, my dear young lady, had you arranged with me, or with some other one of my confreres, to have the picture sent to the Vatican for the inspection of His Holiness. The Popes, as you know, have from time immemorial been the best patrons of art!"
"My picture would not please the Pope," said Angela quietly, "It would more probably win his denunciation than his patronage."
Gherardi smiled. The idea of a woman—a mere woman imagining that anything which she could do was powerful enough to bring down Papal denunciation! The strange conceit of these feminine geniuses! He could almost have laughed aloud. But he merely looked her over blandly and forbearingly.
"I am sorry," he said, "very sorry you should consider such a thing as possible of your work. But no doubt you speak on impulse. Your distinguished uncle, the Cardinal Bonpre, would be sadly distressed if your picture should contain anything of a nature to bring you any condemnation from the Vatican,—and your father . . ."
"Leave me out of it, if you please!" interrupted Prince Pietro, "I have nothing whatever to do with it! Angela works with a free hand; none of us have seen what she is doing."
"Not even you, Signor Varillo?" enquired Gherardi affably.
"Oh, I?" laughed Florian carelessly, "No indeed! I have not the least idea of the subject or the treatment!"
"A mystery then?" said Gherardi, still preserving his bland suavity of demeanour, "But permit me, Donna Sovrani, to express the hope that when the veil is lifted a crown of laurels may be disclosed for you!"