“Business?” exclaimed Marzio in loud ironical tones.  “This is a good time for talking of business—­as good as any other!  What is it?”

“The Cardinal wants another piece of work done, a very fine piece of work.”

“The Cardinal?  I will not make any more chalices for your cardinals.  I am sick of chalices, and monstrances, and such stuff.”

“It is none of those,” answered Don Paolo quietly.  “The Cardinal wants a magnificent silver crucifix.  Will you undertake it?  It must be your greatest work, if you do it at all.”

“A crucifix?” repeated Marzio, in a changed tone.  The angry gleam faded from his eyes, and a dreamy look came into them as he let the heavy lids droop a little, and remained silent, apparently lost in thought.  The women ceased sobbing, and watched his altered face, while Gianbattista sank down into a chair and absently fingered the pencil that had fallen across the drawing-board.

“Will you do it?” asked Don Paolo, at last.

“A crucifix,” mused the artist.  “Yes, I will make a crucifix.  I have made many, but I have never made one to my mind.  Yes, tell the Cardinal that I will make it for him, if he will give me time.”

“I do not think he will need it in less than three or four months,” answered Don Paolo.

“Four months—­that is not a long time for such a work.  But I will try.”

Thereupon Marzio, whose manner had completely changed, puffed at his pipe until it burned freely, and then approached the table, glancing at Gianbattista and Lucia as though nothing had happened.  He drew the drawing-board which the apprentice had been using towards him, and, taking the pencil from the hand of the young man, began sketching heads on one corner of the paper.

Don Paolo looked at him gravely.  After the words Marzio had spoken, it had gone against the priest’s nature to communicate to him the commission for the sacred object.  He had hesitated a moment, asking himself whether it was right that such a man should be allowed to do such work.  Then the urgency of the situation, and his knowledge of his brother’s character, had told him that the diversion might avert some worse catastrophe, and he had quickly made up his mind.  Even now he asked himself whether he had done right.  It was a question of theology, which it would have taken long to analyse, and Don Paolo had other matters to think of in the present, so he dismissed it from his mind.  He wanted to be gone, and he only stayed a few minutes to see whether Marzio’s mind would change again.  He knew his brother well, and he was sure that no violence was to be feared from him, except in his speech.  Such scenes as he had just witnessed were not uncommon in the Pandolfi household, and Don Paolo did not believe that any consequence was to be expected after he had left the house.  He only felt that Marzio had been more than usually unreasonable, and that the artist could not possibly mean seriously what he had proposed that evening.