The man swept a vermilion streak from his brush.
"An ingenuous question, messire."
"I am ever ingenuous."
"A perilous habit."
"Yet you have not answered me."
The friar tilted his chin like a woman eyeing herself in a mirror.
"Religion is full of picturesque incidents," he said.
"And is profitable."
"Sire, you shame Solomon. There are ever many rich and devout fools in the world. Give me a gleaming Venus, rising ruddy from the sea, rather than a lachrymose Magdalene. But what would you? I trim my Venus up in fine apparel, put a puling infant in her lap. Ecce--Sancta Maria."
The man on the footstool smiled despite the jester's theme, a smile that had more scorn in it than sympathy.