This allusion did not seem pleasing to the artist, for a peculiar expression darkened his face for a moment, like the transient sweeping of a shadow over a sunny landscape.
"It is true," he murmured, with real or simulant modesty, "that my picture has been very much admired. It was exhibited one day; the next, my name was in all the newspapers. Like Byron I woke up one morning to find myself famous. I have realized a considerable sum of money by exhibiting the picture, and as a consequence have become courted by people who discover virtues in me now they never perceived before."
"'Give me gold, and by that rule Who will say I am a fool?'"
murmured my uncle. "Just so. Gold is a lamp that lights up virtues that without it are unseen."
I regret to say that I did not view Angelo with any more favour for his rising reputation as an artist, and Daphne's evident delight at his success added fresh fuel to my smouldering jealousy.
"What, Mr. Vasari! Have you painted a picture that is creating a sensation at Paris? Why did you not tell of this before, papa? This is the first that Frank and I have heard of it."
It was, but it was far from being the last we were to hear of the artist's memorable masterpiece.
"Well, you see," my uncle replied apologetically, "I did not know it myself till last night, when I saw it in the _Standard_. You were asleep at the time, and I take it you didn't want me to call you out of bed to tell you of it."
At the mention of the word _Standard_, there appeared on the artist's face the same peculiar expression that I had previously noticed.
"_Standard, Standard!_" he muttered reflectively. "Why, that's the--" He stopped, and added abruptly, "Do you have the _Standard_ sent to you?"
"O, nothing, nothing," replied Angelo; "nothing at all. It's a--a Conservative journal, and I know--at least, I believe--you're a Radical."
"A Radical. Noble profession!" responded my uncle.
"Yes; that's all it is--profession!" laughed Daphne, whose political ideals differed from those of her father.
"The _Standard_ is not my paper, as you very well know," said my uncle, grandly ignoring his daughter's remark. "It's the butler's fault that it is here. I wrote telling him to forward to Rivoli a file of newspapers for June and July. As I forgot to specify what paper, the rascal has sent me the _Standard_."