Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/262

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242
THE CLOSING NET

ful copy of Michelangelo's "Kneeling Angel." There were also some smaller paintings, two landscapes, and a "Madonna."

The most valuable article in the studio was a large and very handsome tapestry which looked to me like a genuine Gobelin, though the colours were of deeper and more neutral tints than you generally find in this manufacture. I judged that Sœur Anne Marie must have had at one time a little money, and that when the church goods were confiscated she had bought back in different sales some of the articles which had grown dear to her.

Here and there Rosalie's touch brightened the place. This was not always in keeping, but it was cheerful, and it looked as if Sœur Anne Marie tolerated the frivolous bits through her love for the girl. On an ancient piano in one corner lay a violin; and I hoped that the two played together, as I love music.

Altogether, my friend, it was not a usual situation. Here there were about to live for some days under the same roof—for I knew Sœur Anne Marie would take me in—a devout Mother Superior, who was likely enough the daughter of some old and noble family, an American girl from Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of an Irish cab-driver and the divorcée of a French count who had never so much as kissed her, she now earning a good living as the chauffeuse of a taxicab; myself, an ex-burglar and confidence man, coming there red-handed from a sincere and conscientious effort to kill an enemy, badly wounded, and feeling on the verge of physical collapse. We were an assorted trio, now, were we not?