“Yes, perhaps it might look churlish of you not to accept,” she said, putting away from her the insidious suggestion that perhaps if Florian loved her as much as he professed, an invitation to a banquet at Naples would have had no attraction for him as compared with being present at the first view of her picture on the morning she had herself appointed—­“I think under the circumstances you had better not see the picture till you come back!”

“Now, Angela!” he exclaimed vexedly, “You know I will not consent to that!  You have promised me that I shall be the first to see it—­and here I am!”

“It should be seen by the morning light,” said Angela, a touch of nervousness beginning to affect her equanimity,—­“This light is pale and waning, though the afternoon is so clear.  You cannot see the coloring to the best advantage!”

“Am I not a painter also?” asked Varillo playfully, putting his arm round her waist,—­“And can I not guess the effect in the morning light as well as if I saw it?  Come, Angela mia!  Unveil the great prodigy!” and he laughed,—­“You began it before we were affianced;—­ think what patience I have had for nearly two years!”

Angela did not reply at once.  Somehow, his light laugh jarred upon her.

“Florian,” she said at last, raising her truthful, beautiful eyes fully to his, “I do not think you quite understand!  This picture has absorbed a great deal of my heart and soul—­I have as it were, painted my own life blood into it—­for I mean it to declare a truth and convey a lesson.  It will either cover me with obloquy, or crown me with lasting fame.  You speak jestingly, as if it were some toy with which I had amused myself these three years.  Do you not believe that a woman’s work may be as serious, as earnest, and strongly purposeful as a man’s?”

Still clasping her round the waist, Florian drew her closer, and pressing her head against his breast, he looked down on her smiling.

“What sweet eyes you have!” he said, “The sweetest, the most trusting, the most childlike eyes I have ever seen!  It would be impossible to paint such eyes, unless one’s brushes were Raffaelle’s, dipped in holy water.  Not that I believe very much in holy water as a painter’s medium!  “He laughed,—­he had a well-shaped mouth and was fond of smiling, in order that he might show his even pearly teeth, which contrasted becomingly with his dark moustache.  “Yes, my Angela has beautiful eyes,—­and such soft, pretty hair!” and he caressed it gently, “like little golden tendrils with a beam of the sunlight caught in it!  Is not that a pretty compliment?  I think I ought to have been a poet instead of a painter!”

“You are both,” said Angela fondly, with a little sigh of rest and pleasure as she nestled in his arms—­“You will be the greatest artist of your time when you paint large subjects instead of small ones.”

His tender hold of her relaxed a little.

“You think ‘Phillida et les Roses’ a small subject?” he asked, with a touch of petulance in his tone, “Surely if a small study is perfect, it is better than a large one which is imperfect?”