American custom? I ask pardon from my heart if I have done anything
amiss."

"There is no offense,' said the painter, with a laugh," and I don't
wonder you thought I ought to be in love with Miss Vervain. She
_is_ beautiful, and I believe she's good. But if men had to marry
because women were beautiful and good, there isn't one of us could live
single a day. Besides, I'm the victim of another passion,--I'm laboring
under an unrequited affection for Art."

"Then you do _not_ love her?" asked Don Ippolito, eagerly.

"So far as I'm advised at present, no, I don't."

"It is strange!" said the priest, absently, but with a glowing face.

He quitted the painter's and walked swiftly homeward with a triumphant
buoyancy of step. A subtle content diffused itself over his face, and a
joyful light burnt in his deep eyes. He sat down before the piano and
organ as he had arranged them, and began to strike their keys in
unison; this seemed to him for the first time childish. Then he played
some lively bars on the piano alone; they sounded too light and
trivial, and he turned to the other instrument. As the plaint of the
reeds arose, it filled his sense like a solemn organ-music, and
transfigured the place; the notes swelled to the ample vault of a
church, and at the high altar he was celebrating the mass in his
sacerdotal robes. He suddenly caught his fingers away from the keys;
his breast heaved, he hid his face in his hands.