The Italian bowed gravely.
The landlady brought in Gerard's dinner smoking and savoury. She put the dish down on the bed with a face divested of all expression, and went.
Gerard fell to. But ere he had eaten many mouthfuls, he stopped, and said: “I am an ill-mannered churl, Signor Pietro. I ne'er eat to my mind when I eat alone. For our Lady's sake put a spoon into this ragout with me; 'tis not unsavoury, I promise you.”
Pietro fixed his glittering eye on him.
“What, good youth, thou a stranger, and offerest me thy dinner?”
“Why, see, there is more than one can eat.”
“Well, I accept,” said Pietro; and took the dish with some appearance of calmness, and flung the contents out of window.
Then he turned, trembling with mortification and ire, and said: “Let that teach thee to offer alms to an artist thou knowest not, master writer.”
Gerard's face flushed with anger, and it cost him a bitter struggle not to box this high-souled creature's ears. And then to go and destroy good food! His mother's milk curdled in his veins with horror at such impiety. Finally, pity at Pietro's petulance and egotism, and a touch of respect for poverty-struck pride, prevailed.
However, he said coldly, “Likely what thou hast done might pass in a novel of thy countryman, Signor Boccaccio; but 'twas not honest.”