Gerald, having read, sat down and wrote, with a disregard to the delicacy of his hair-lines and the shading of his down-strokes that would have furnished a poor example to anybody:
“The portrait, my dear Mrs. Hawthorne, is a gift, for which I will not even accept thanks, as it is, your kind opinion notwithstanding, absolutely without value. One sole point of interest it has, that of a future curiosity–the only thing of the kind that will have been painted in his whole lifetime by
“Your devoted friend,
“G. F.
“Shall I find you at home this evening?”
207CHAPTER XII
No festivity has quite the vast and varied glitter of a veglione. It takes a whole city to make a party so big and bright. And the last veglione of the season is rather brighter than the rest, as if the spirit of revelry, inexhausted at the end of Carnival, made haste to use itself up in fireworks before the cold dawn of Ash Wednesday.
The opera-house is cleared of its rows of seats, the stage united to the parquet by a sloping floor. Every one of the boxes, rising tier above tier in a jeweled horseshoe, offers the sight of a merry supper-party, with spread table, twinkling candelabra, flowers, gala display.
Crowding floor and stage and lobbies, swarm the maskers. In the center of the great floor the corps de ballet, regiment of sylphs in tulle petticoats and pale-pink tights, performs its characteristic evolutions to the pulsating strains of the opera orchestra. The public dances in the remaining space–dances, promenades, and plays pranks, the special diversion of the evening being to “intrigue” some one. They are heard speaking in high squeaks, in bass rumbles, in any way that may disguise the voice. Many are in costume,–Mephistos, Pierrots, Figaros, Harlequins, but the most are in simple domino.