"I suppose I'm grateful you can see any value in it at all," he admits with a dry little smile. "Even if it's not philosophically and only aesthetically."

It's something, anyway. He's heard enough people - Protestants in particular - mock and dismiss the pageantry of the Catholic church and it's saints and martyrs, as if they had no saints of their own.

He does wonder if Anthony looks for something in art that he feels he's lost in his own life. Gabriel can't quite bring himself to ask it out loud, not in a bar anyway. Maybe when he's mastered some French, he'll try.

"Besides, I have to imagine Saint Sebastian would make any queer look twice."

Christ, he remembers having unholy thoughts after studying saints in art.