Ouida considered this Crawford's best book as of 1900, when she wrote of it. Marzio's conflicted, ornery character is presented well, the others adequately, except the two women who are empty stereotypes. There are several effective conversations among different people which explore the relationship between the Church and the ordinary man, the Church representing wealth and arrogance in Marzio's mind, and the source of his general aggrievement regarding his social position in Rome. He is a respected silversmith, an acknowledged master, yet he feels unappreciated. Commissions for silver chalices and ewers and other religious paraphernalia are the primary source of his income, and he is not a poor man. Yet he chafes and grumbles at the power of the priests, which include his own brother, and in private is given to bombastic explosions of resentment and envy.
A conversation between a bishop and Paolo, Marzio's priest brother, in which they discuss how wealth and ecclesiastical authority justify the inequality in society, may represent Crawford's own attitude, that the common man is not competent to conduct his own affairs, and it is the Church which provides the guardrails which guide men's behavior. His treatment of Marzio's work, of his sensual and reverential relationship with the beautiful objects he creates, with the tools, the smells of wax and metal and dust, is sympathetic and evocative. Crawford, whose father was Thomas Crawford, a sculptor in stone in Rome. is clearly respectful of the skill and artistry involved in trade work.