94“You mean he’ll be the only man? I guess he can stand it. We thought of asking Charlie Hunt, too, but he’s English and would seem an outsider at this particular gathering. Wish you’d come. You’re such a friend of theirs. Come on, come!”
“Mrs. Hawthorne, you are so very unusually kind. If you would leave it open, and then when the day arrives, if I should find I could do so without–without–”
“Oh, yes. Come if you can. And be sure, now, you come!”
They were still sitting at the table–dinner had been retarded by the circumstantial round of the house–when music resounding through the echoing rooms stopped the talk.
It was the piano across the hall that had been briskly and powerfully attacked. The “Royal March” of Italy was played, first baldly, then with manifold clinging and wreathing variations.
Aurora signed to the servant to open the dining-room door. All three at the table sat in silence till the end of the piece.
Gerald wondered what the evening caller could be who made the moments of waiting light to himself in this fanciful manner.
“It’s Italo,” said Mrs. Hawthorne, rising. “I call him Italo because I never can remember his other name. Come, let’s go into the parlor.”
It was all rosily lighted. Candles set on the piano at each side of the music-rest enkindled glossy high lights on the nose-bump and forehead bosses of Signor Ceccherelli, who at Mrs. Hawthorne’s appearance sprang up to salute. She reached him her hand, over which he deeply bowed.
95“You’re to play all those lovely things I’m so fond of,” she directed him. “‘The Swallow and the Prisoner,’ ‘The Butterflies,’ ‘The Cascade of Pearls.’ And don’t forget the ‘Souvenir of Saint Helena.’ Then the one of the soldiers marching off and the soldiers coming home again. All our favorites. Mr. Fane– Are you acquainted with each other? Italo–you’ll have to tell him your name yourself. All I can think of is Checkerberry.”