Page:Her Roman Lover (Frothingham, 1911).djvu/86

 gossiped on the walls of Troy while the battle raged below must have sounded with much of the same dry and pitiful futility, and she shared her fancy with Curatulo, who said bluntly that he knew nothing of what happened on the walls of Troy—it was another of the subjects that did not interest him.

They came to a chapel where the mass was being said, and stood among the crowd of those who stood and knelt outside the stone balustrade. Within the chapel sat the officiating priests, some of them with strong hard faces, some with weak sensual ones, and all of them looking bored. From their midst, as they dozed, or took snuff, or yawned behind their hands, came a mechanical chanting, a dry sound which seemed to proceed almost automatically. Anne wondered at such a spectacle, as existing presumably for the two-fold purpose of glorifying God and lifting the spirit of man towards Him, and again she wished to share her impression with the man beside her; but he had neither thoughts nor words for anything but her relation to himself. His voice came to her through the chanting:—

“I tell you that you have an exquisite charm for me, and your reply is to argue with me upon a religious position. I ask you when I may see