The White Sister | Page 6

closed.
The Marchesa no longer seemed to be in need of support and watched
her.
'My poor child!' she cried, in a tone of conventional sympathy. 'I should

have broken the news to you gradually----'
'You should indeed!' answered Giovanni with stern emphasis.
He was already leading Angela to one of the nearest of the high-backed
chairs that stood ranged against the dark-green wall of the hall. She sat
down, steadying herself by his arm.
'Run over by a motor car almost at his own door,' said the Marchesa, in
a lower tone and in English, as she turned slightly towards Durand.
'Killed on the spot! It is too awful! My poor brother-in-law!'
'Get some brandy and some cold water,' said the artist to his man,
watching the girl's pale face and twitching hands.
'Yes,' said Giovanni, who was bending over her anxiously. 'Bring
something quickly! She is going to faint.'
But Angela was not fainting, nor even half-unconscious. She had felt as
if something hard had struck her between the eyes, without quite
stunning her. She attempted to get up, but realised her weakness and
waited a moment before trying again. Then she rose to her feet with an
effort and stood straight and rigid before her aunt, her eyes quite open
now.
'Come!' she said, almost imperiously, and in a voice unlike her own.
In a moment they were gone, and the artist was standing before the
portrait he had finished, looking into its eyes as if it were alive. He had
been deeply shocked by what had just happened, and was sincerely
sorry for Angela, though he had not the least idea whether she had
loved her father or not, but his face was calm and thoughtful again, now
that she was gone, and expressed a quiet satisfaction which had not
been there before. For it seemed to him that the picture was a precious
reality, and that the young girl who had sat for it was only nature's copy,
and not perfect at that; and perhaps the reality would not be taken from
him, now, since Prince Chiaromonte had come to an untimely end; and
the prospect of keeping the canvas was exceedingly pleasing to Filmore

Durand. He had never painted anything that had disappointed him less,
or that he was less willing to part with, and during the last day or two
he had even thought of making a replica of it for the Prince in order to
keep the original, for no copy, though it were made by himself most
conscientiously, could ever be quite so good. But now that the Prince
was dead, it was possible that the heirs, if there were any besides
Angela, would be glad to be excused from paying a large sum for a
picture they did not want. He was sure from the young girl's manner
that she would no more care to possess a portrait of herself than a
coloured postcard of the Colosseum or a plaster-cast of one of Canova's
dancing-girls. This was not flattering to the artist, it was true, but in the
present case he would rather keep his own painting than have it
appreciated ever so highly by any one else.
Late in the afternoon he stopped before the closed gateway of the
Palazzo Chiaromonte and pushed the little postern that stood ajar. The
big porter was within, standing dejectedly before the door of his lodge,
and already dressed in the deep mourning which is kept in readiness in
all the great Roman houses. The painter asked in broken Italian if the
bad news was true, and the man nodded gravely, pointing to the gates.
They would not be shut unless the master were dead. Durand asked
after Donna Angela, but the porter was not communicative. She had
come in with her aunt and both were upstairs; he suspected the painter
of being a foreign newspaper correspondent and would say nothing
more.
The American thanked him and went away; after all, he had come to
make sure that the Prince was really dead, and he was conscious that
his wish to keep the portrait was the only motive of his inquiry.
He strolled away through the crowded streets, blowing such clouds of
cigarette smoke about him that people looked at him in surprise. It was
almost sunset, in February, and it was just before Lent. Rome is at her
gayest then, though the old Carnival is as dead and gone as Pio Nono,
Garibaldi, the French military occupation, the hatred of the Jesuits, and
all that made the revival of Italy in the nineteenth century the most
thrilling romance that ever roused Italian passion and stirred the world's

sympathy. Durand was not old enough to remember those times, and he
had never been in Rome at