The White Sister | Page 3

own when his
temper was roused. If his look had been less frank and direct, or if his
other features had suggested any bad quality, his eyes would probably
have been intolerably disagreeable to meet; as it was, they warned all
comers that their possessor was one of those uncommon and dangerous
men who go to the utmost extremes when they believe themselves in
the right and are constitutionally incapable of measuring danger or
considering consequences when they are roused. Giovanni Severi was
about eight-and-twenty, and wore the handsome uniform of an artillery
officer on the Staff. He had not liked the Marchesa's remark, and the
impatient little clink of his scabbard against his spur only preceded his
answer by a second.
'Happily for Angela,' he said, 'we are not in the studio of a caricaturist.'
The Marchesa, who could be near-sighted on occasion, put up her
tortoiseshell-mounted eyeglass and looked at him aggressively; but as
he returned her gaze with steadiness, she soon turned away.
'You are extremely rude,' she said coldly.
For she herself made clever caricatures in water-colours, and she knew
what Giovanni meant. Angela's mother had been a very devout woman
and had died young, but had incurred the hatred of the Marchesa by
marrying the very man whom the latter had picked out for herself,

namely, the elder of two brothers, and the Marchesa had reluctantly
consented to marry the other, who had a much less high-sounding title
and a far smaller fortune. She had revenged herself in various small
ways, and had often turned her brother-in-law's wife to ridicule by
representing her as an ascetic mediæval saint, in contorted attitudes of
ecstasy, with sunken cheeks and eyes like saucers full of ink. Like
many other people, Giovanni had seen some of these drawings, for the
resentful Marchesa had not destroyed them when the Princess
Chiaromonte died; but no one had yet been unkind enough to tell
Angela of their existence. The girl did not like her aunt by marriage, it
was true, but with a singularly simple and happy disposition, and a total
absence of vanity, she apparently possessed her mother's almost saintly
patience, and she bore the Marchesa's treatment with a cheerful
submission which exasperated the elder woman much more than any
show of temper could have done.
Just now, seeing that trouble of some sort was imminent, she made a
diversion by coming down from the low movable platform, on which
her chair had been placed for the sitting, and she spoke to the artist
while she studied her own portrait. Durand was a very thin man, and so
tall that Angela had to look very high to see his face as she stood beside
him.
'I could never be as good as the picture looks,' she said in English, with
a little laugh, 'nor so dreadfully in earnest! But it is very nice of you to
think that I might!'
'You will never be anything but good,' answered Filmore Durand, 'and
it's not necessarily dreadful to be in earnest about it.'
'You are a moralist. I see.' observed the Marchesa, putting on a sweet
smile as she rose and came forward, followed by Giovanni.
'I don't know,' replied the painter. 'What is a moralist?'
'A person who is in earnest about other people's morals,' suggested
Angela gaily.

'Really!' cried the Marchesa, with a most emphatic English
pronunciation of the word. 'One would think that you had been brought
up in a Freemasons' lodge!'
In view of the fact that Angela's father was one of the very last
survivors of the 'intransigent' clericals, this was quite the most cutting
speech the Marchesa could think of. But Filmore Durand failed to see
the point.
'What has Freemasonry to do with morality?' he inquired with bland
surprise.
'Nothing at all,' answered the Marchesa smartly, 'for it is the religion of
the devil.'
'Dear me!' The artist smiled. 'What strong prejudices you have in
Rome!'
'Are you a Freemason?' the noble lady asked, with evident nervousness;
and she glanced from his face to Angela, and then at the door.
'Well--no--I'm not,' the painter admitted with a slight drawl, and
evidently amused. 'But then I'm not a moralist either, though I suppose
I might be both and yet go on painting about the same.'
'I think not,' said the Marchesa so stiffly that Giovanni almost laughed
aloud. 'We must be going,' she added, suddenly relaxing to
graciousness again. 'It has been such a privilege to see you day after
day, my dear Mr. Durand, and to watch you working in your own
surroundings. My brother-in-law will come to-morrow. I have no doubt
that he will be much pleased with the portrait.'
Filmore Durand smiled indifferently but with politeness as he bowed
over the Marchesa's hand. He did not