"Told me what?"
"About—about—you thought I was inventing it—that story—about the Tenor and the Boy."
Mr. Kilroy curved his fingers together and held them up over the table for a moment as if he were about to tap upon it again, and it was as if he had asked a question.
"It was all true," Angelica proceeded, "all that I told you. But there was more."
Mr. Kilroy uttered a low exclamation, and hung his head as if in shame. The colour had fled from his face, leaving it ghastly gray for a moment like that of a dead man. Angelica half rose to go to him, fearing he would faint, but he had recovered before she could carry out her intention. She looked at him compassionately. She would have given her life to be able to spare him now, but it was too late, and there was nothing for it but to go on and get it over.
"You remember the picture I had painted—'Music'?" Mr. Kilroy made a gesture of assent. "That was his portrait."
"I always understood it was an ideal singer,"
"An idealized singer was what I said; but it was not even that, as you would have seen for yourself if you had ever gone to the cathedral. It is a good likeness, nothing more,"
"And you had yourself put into a picture with a common tenor, and exhibited to all the world'"
"Yes, and all the world thought it a great condescension. But he did not consent to it, or sit for it. He objected to the picture as strongly as you do. He was not a common tenor at all. He was an old and intimate friend of Uncle Dawne's and Dr. Galbraith's. They all—all our people—knew him. He was often at Morne before you came to Ilverthorpe; but I did not know it myself until afterward."