She still hesitated.  Then after a pause, she came towards him once more, the soft colour alternately flushing and paling her cheeks, as she laid her hand on his arm.

“You did not answer me,” she said, “when I asked you just now if you believed that a woman’s work could be as purposeful as a man’s—­ sometimes indeed more so.  You evaded the question.  Why?”

“Did I evade it?” and Varillo took her hand in his own and kissed it,—­“Dolcesza mia, I would not pain you for the world!”

A slight shadow clouded her face.

“You will not pain me,” she answered, “except by not being true to yourself and to me.  You know how I have worked,—­you know how high I have set my ambition for your sake—­to make myself more worthy of you; but if you do honestly think that a woman’s work in art must always be inferior to a man’s, no matter how ardently she studies—­ no matter even if she has so perfected herself in drawing, anatomy, and colouring as to be admitted the equal of men in these studies—­ if the result must, in your mind, be nevertheless beneath that of the masculine attainment, why say so,—­because then—­then—­”

“Then what, my sweet philosopher?” asked Florian lightly, again kissing the hand he held.

She fixed her eyes fully on him.  “Then,” she replied slowly, “I should know you better—­I should understand you more!”

An unpleasant twinge affected his nerves, and his eyelids quivered and blinked as though struck by a sudden shaft of the sun.  This was the only facial sign he ever gave of the difficulty he at times experienced in meeting the straight, clear glance of his betrothed.

“You would know me more, and love me less?  Is that it?” he said carelessly.  “My dear girl, why do you press the point?  If you will have it, I tell you frankly, I think women are growing very clever, much too clever in fact,—­and that the encouragement and impetus given to them in the Arts is a very great mistake.  Because they are not all geniuses like my Angela!  You are one in a thousand—­or rather one in a million,—­and for one Angela Sovrani we shall have a world of female daubers calling themselves artists and entering into competition with us, as if we had not already quite enough competition among our own sex!  I honestly believe that with very rare exceptions woman’s work is decidedly inferior and mediocre as compared to man’s.”

Quickly Angela disengaged herself from his hold, her lips trembling--her eyes were full of a strange fire and brilliancy,—­her slight figure seemed to grow taller as she stood for a moment like a queen, regarding him steadfastly from under her fair, level brows.

“Then come and see!” she said, “I am not proud—­I make no boast at all of what I have done—­and no one perceives or deplores the faults of my work more than I do—­but I know I have not altogether failed!”