Gerald cherished a hope, born of curiosity, that he might witness some exhibition of Ceccherelli’s spirito, or wit, and upon an evening when the pianist dropped in after dinner was on the alert for manifestations....
It may here be inserted that upon being asked to remain for dinner Gerald had artfully delayed answering until he had made sure that Clotilde did not dine with the ladies. Their familiarity had made him fear it. Highly as he was prepared to esteem Clotilde, the meal would, with her making the fourth, have lost for him those points on account of which he prized it. But he gathered that she found it more convenient to take her meals in private. In rejoicing for himself, he rejoiced also for her, eating in holy peace, as he pictured her doing, the dishes of her country, cooked with oil and onion; pouring the wine of her country from a good fat flask such as never found its place on the table of the strangers.
To go back: Gerald when after dinner the pianist came to make music for the ladies, was hoping for some example of that brightness for which he had a reputation with three persons, possibly more. But Ceccherelli remained on the piano-stool and never once raised his voice. Estelle and Aurora went in turns to chat with him there, but not one witty word reached Gerald. Then he had the sense to see that it was he, Gerald, who acted as a spoil-feast, a dampener. He got an outside view of himself, stiff, dry, critical, ungenial-looking. It was not to be wondered at that the flow of spirits was dried up in the man of temperament by his vicinity. He suspected, catching a side-look from the 190pianist’s small brown eye, that the little man who did not care to speak aloud in his hearing yet had plenty to say on the subject of him in a different entourage.
This notwithstanding, it was only when Gerald got whiffs and echoes of Ceccherelli through Aurora that he called him a pest.
“Italo says,” she began, after a silence such as often fell while she posed and he painted, “that Mr. Landini has the evil eye.”
“What rubbish!”
“Glad to hear you say so. I don’t believe there’s any such thing, myself. But Italo swears there is, and has told me story upon story to prove it. He wants me to wear a coral horn and poke it at Mr. Landini whenever he comes near me.”
“Wherefore a coral horn? You can more cheaply, and quite as effectually, make horns of your fingers, like this. I should strongly advise you not to let the object of this precaution catch you doing it.... I should think, Mrs. Hawthorne, you would be ashamed to let that inferior little individual corrupt your mind.”
Fancying it teased him, she pursued, “What do you think he says besides? That Mr. Landini’s color isn’t natural, but a juice, he says, a dye, that he stains himself with.”
“For the love of Heaven, why?”