"Dearest uncle," she said, making her pretty genuflection as he approached her, "I must ask you to forgive me for coming to your rooms just now when your time is so much taken up, and when I know you have to go to the Vatican,—but I want to tell you one thing that may perhaps please you,—my picture is finished!"
"Finished!" echoed the Cardinal—then tenderly taking her hands, he added, "I congratulate you, dear child, with all my heart!—and I pray that the reward of your long and patient toil may be worthy of you. And when are we to see your work?"
"To-morrow!" answered Angela, and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled, "I shall be busy all today arranging it for exhibition in the best light. To-morrow morning Florian is to see it first,—then my father will come, and you—and Manuel!" and she smiled as she met the boy's gentle look,—"And Queen Margherita has promised to be here at mid-day."
"Florian first! And then your father!" said Prince Pietro, with a touch of melancholy in his tone, "Ah well, Angela mia!—I suppose it must always be so! The lover's love—the stranger's love,—is greater than the love of years, the love of home! Yet sometimes, I fancy that the lover's love often turns out to be a passing impulse more than a real truth, and that the home-love reasserts itself afterwards with the best and the holiest power!"
And not trusting himself to say more, he abruptly left the room. Angela looked after him, a little troubled. The Cardinal took her hand.
"He is your father, dear girl!" he said gently, "And he cannot but feel it hard—at first—to be relegated to a second place in your affections."
Angela sighed.
"I cannot help it!" she said, "Florian is my very life! I should have no ambition—no joy in anything if he did not love me!"
Over the Cardinal's fine open face there came an expression of great pain.
"That is idolatry, Angela!" he said gravely, "We make a grievous mistake when we love human beings too deeply,—for they are not the gods we would make of them. Like ourselves, they are subject to sin, and their sins often create more unhappiness for us than our own!"