“I do not know, child; he may be!  Sometimes I think that he loves himself too much to love you as well as you deserve.  But we shall see.”

As he spoke a servant entered, carrying an exquisite basket of flowers, and brought it to Angela who blushed and smiled divinely as she took it and opened the envelope fastened to its handle and addressed to her, which contained merely these words,—­

“A la mia dolcezza!  Con voto d’eterno amore! 
“Florian.”

“Are they not lovely?” she said, bending over the blossoms tenderly as though she would have taken them all into her embrace, “Such a sweet welcome home!”

Her father nodded, but gave no verbal response to her enthusiasm.  Presently he said,

“How about your picture?  When will it be finished?”

“A month’s work will be enough now,” she replied, looking up quickly—­“And then—­”

“Then it will remain in one of the galleries unsold!” said Sovrani, with a touch of bitterness in his tone which he could not quell, “You have chosen too large a canvas.  From mere size it is unsaleable,—­for unless it were a marvel of the world no nation would ever purchase a woman’s picture.”

Angela’s delicate head drooped,—­she turned away to hide the tears that rushed to her eyes.  Her father’s words were harsh, yet eminently practical; she knew he did not mean them unkindly, but that the continual pinch of poverty was sometimes greater than he could endure with patience.  Angela had earned considerable sums of money by the smaller pictures which had established her name; and the Prince had bitterly grudged the time she had given to the enormous canvas which had now remained so long in her studio covered up, even from his eyes—­for he had made up his mind that it was one of those fantastic dreams of genius, which when they become realised into the substance of a book or a picture, terrify the timid conventions of the world so completely as to cause general avoidance.

“If Raffaelle were alive he would not paint a ‘Transfiguration’ now,” he was wont to say, “The Church no longer employs great artists.  It keeps its money for speculation purposes.  If a Michael Angelo were in Rome he would find nothing to do.”

Which statement was true enough.  For the modern Italian loves money next to his own precious skin, and everything beautiful or sacred is sacrificed to this insatiable craze.  There is no love, no honour, no patriotism in Italy without careful calculation as to the cost of indulging in these sentiments,—­and what wreck of religion is left merely panders to the low melodramatic temper of an ignorant populace.  Art is at its lowest ebb, it cannot live without encouragement and support—­and it is difficult for even the most enthusiastic creator in marble or colour to carry out glorious conceptions for an inglorious country.  But Angela Sovrani—­ambitious Angela,—­was not painting for Italy.  She was painting for the whole world.  She had