“God forbid! No!”
“She is much like yonder picture.”
“What picture?—Not the altar picture!”
“Of course this is holy and heavenly—and she is only faery—”
“‘Faery!’—She is an accursed woman!”
The Prior stood still, his hand upon the espaliered pear tree against the south wall. His thin face, his tall thin figure grew extraordinarily alive. “Do you never tell that fancy!” His voice had a fearful sternness. “Do you never tell that fancy to any living wight!”
Thomas Bettany himself was afraid of it. “Jesu knows I would not do Our Lady disrespect!”
“It will be heinous disrespect if you say that that sinner hath her face—”
Bettany carefully made distinctions. “I meant not like Her—but like the woman the painter must have used just for hint of form and face! Once I saw a monk painting on a missal border where it said ‘Rose of Sharon.’ But he had in a cup beside him which he looked often upon a rose from the garden.”