"How many cherubs' eyes I have made with that thing!" He turned to the slate and examined the rough model he had made in wax, flat still, and only indicated by vigorous touches, the red material smeared on the black surface all around it by his fingers.

There was force in the figure, even in its first state, and there was a strange pathos in the bent head, the only part as yet in high relief.

But Marzio looked at it angrily.

He turned it to the light, closed his eyes a moment, looked at it again, and then, with an incoherent oath, his long, discoloured hand descended on the model, and, with a heavy pressure and one strong push, flattened out what he had done, and smeared it into a shapeless mass upon the dark stone.
"I shall never do it," he said in a low voice.

"They have destroyed my idea." For some minutes he rested his head in his hand in deep thought.