“Can you ask?”

He looked at her.  What an embodied insult to the arrogance of man she was!  She!—­a mere woman!—­and the painter of the finest picture ever seen since Raffaelle and Michael Angelo left the world to work elsewhere.  “Chaste as ice, pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny!” In his imagination he saw the world crowning her with imperishable bays—­he heard the denunciation of the Vatican and the condemnation of the Churches, thunder uselessly against the grand lesson of her work, while crowds gathered adoringly before the most perfect Christ ever painted!—­and he saw her name written up in letters of gold on the scroll of those whom history numbers as immortal!  It should not be!  It should never be!  And again he spoke, enunciating his words with difficulty, for his lips were dry.

“It is very fine!  Quite marvellous, in fact!—­almost unprecedented!  That is why I ask, ‘did you do it all yourself?’ You must not be offended, Angela!  I mean so well!  You see the conception—­the breadth of treatment—­the gradation and tone of colour—­are all absolutely masculine.  Who first suggested the idea to you?”

Still very pale, breathing quickly yet lightly, and maintaining an air of calm which was almost matter of fact, she answered,—­

“No one!  Though perhaps, if it is traced to its source, it arose in my mind from seeing the universal dissatisfaction which most intelligent people feel with religion, as administered to them by the Churches.  That, and a constant close study of the New Testament, set the thought in my brain,—­a thought which gradually expressed itself in this form.  So far as any work belongs to the worker, it is entirely my own creation.  I am sorry you should have implied any doubt of it!”

Here her voice trembled a little, but she quickly steadied it.  He smiled—­a little difficult smile—­and slipping his right hand between his coat and vest, felt for something he always carried there.  It should never be!

“My dear Angela!” he said, with a gracious tranquillity that was almost dignity, “I do not doubt you in the least!—­I merely suggest what all the world will say!  There is not an art-critic alive who will accept this—­this extraordinary production—­as the work of a woman!  It is the kind of thing which might have been produced hundreds of years ago by a great master setting his pupils to work at different sections of the canvas,—­but that one woman, painting all alone for three years, should have designed and executed such a masterpiece—­yes!—­I will admit it is a masterpiece!—­is an unheard of and altogether an extraordinary thing, and you must not wonder if competent judges reject the statement with incredulity!”

“It does not matter to me,” said Angela, “what they reject or accept.  You admit it is a masterpiece—­that is enough for me.  It is my own work, and you know it is!”

“Dear little one!” he said, laughing forcedly, “How do I know?  You have never admitted me into the studio once while you were at work!”