"But I do, though, and wondered at it. Now who are they who compose the 'we'?"
"He and his agent, probably; or he and those who were conveying the picture."
"If he meant those persons only, why should he check himself so sharply?"
My uncle shrugged his shoulders, as if he were growing tired of the subject. "I think, Frank," he said, "that you are attaching too much importance to a trivial expression."
"Possibly I may be; but I cannot help thinking that a mystery surrounds the production of Angelo's picture, and that the mystery is in some way connected with George."
The morning dawned more soft and lovely than the preceding one: a boon to the good people of Rivoli, for it was a gala-day with them.
Daphne, my uncle and myself rose with the break of day, and at an early hour we were standing in the market-place watching the worshippers throng into the cathedral.
Be it far from me to attempt to describe the various ornaments and robes displayed by the dames of Rivoli on this festal occasion: the silver chains and rich headdresses, the dainty cloaks and embroidered kirtles. Suffice it to say there was sufficient white, blue, and black among them to gladden the heart of his Holiness the late Pope, who has expressed his approval of these colours as most becoming to young persons. Nor were sober grey and brown wanting, hues suitable, according to the same authority, to ladies of a more advanced age.
"To be or not to be? that is the question," murmured my uncle, as the last devotee filed into the cathedral, and the great square was left to us. "Whether 'tis nobler to follow the crowd into this edifice to witness a ceremony whose superstition provokes my irreverence, or to stroll onward in the soft morning air and finish this weed? Havana _versus_ church, that is the question."
"No question at all," said Daphne; and, compelling her pagan parent to fling away his cigar and assume a more decorous air, she drew him within the cathedral.
As we came as spectators only, we took up our position in a side-cloister. Looking round for the artist among the crowd of worshippers I at length discovered him in the very first line of seats, reading a Missal, with such attention that he never once glanced to left or right. His devout air and the position he had taken so near the chancel evidently implied an intention to partake of the Communion.