“She honors our Italy,” called Mae’s last partner.
“Her feet are those of a chamois,” said one from the north.
“Nay, she flies,” replied another.
They all spoke in their earnest manner, and the praises, that fall in fulsome flattery in English, were delicate and stimulating as they slid in soft Italian from their full, red lips. Mae tossed her head carelessly, but she sipped the praises and found them sweet.
“Now for the Tarantella,” said the padrona, so Lisetta shook her tambourine wildly, and the very prettiest girl of them all, and a big, brown boy (happy fellow!) began that coquettish bit of witchery. The pretty girl tripped around and around and wreathed her arms over her head, and the boy knelt appealingly and sprang up passionately again and again, until the clock struck ten, and the party broke up. Mae shook hands with a new friend. He was a stone-cutter, and was soon to be married, and he poured out all his plans and hopes into her sympathetic ears, and told of his pretty bride to be, and of her dowry. Mae, in turn, sent her love to the happy bride, and took a charm from her watch-chain to go with it, a tiny silver boat, and she sent it with a hope that some day they might both sail over to America. At which the bridegroom shook his head very decidedly, and kissed Mae’s hand and bowed himself out. Then, after she had disrobed her of her borrowed plumes, all the others kissed her hand and bowed themselves out, and Roberto and Giovanni awaked, and got up from the corner, and stood on their heads and hallooed as loud as ever they pleased, and the evening was over, and Lisetta and the padrona and the boys and Mae were alone.
“Oh, oh, oh,” cried Mae, “how perfectly perfect. Do you always have such good times as this?”
“At home, yes,” replied Lisetta, folding her hands and smiling. “We have many a play-day on the bay of Naples.” Then she roused herself: “Good night, Signorina,” she said, “keep your ears open.”
Mae had barely reached her room when she appreciated Lisetta’s last words. She heard music in the street below. She raised her window; Eric and Norman lifted the parlor window at the same moment, “Come in here,” they cried. So in she ran, took a place between them, and they silently listened to the maskers’ serenade. The musicians sang at first the gayest of tunes, but suddenly, by some subtile impulse, they changed to quieter minor airs, and sang songs full of tears and passion and love and tenderness. Then they silently turned to go. Norman Mann touched Mae on the shoulder. He handed her a bunch of Carnival flowers. They were Bero’s, but she flung them unhesitatingly into the street, leaning far out to watch the singers catch them and separate them in the moonlight. They called out loud their thanks—their “Grazie, grazie,” as sweet as any lily just broken from its stem—and as they turned to go Mae saw that each one was decked with a sprig from the bouquet, pulled through his button-hole or the riband of his hat.
Only the tallest musician, who walked somewhat apart, carried his flower tightly clasped in his hand, and now and again he raised it to his lips. He probably dreamed over it that night, and played his dream out in a gentle, wistful, minor adoration before the Madonna at the Quattro Fontane the next morning.
O, the dreams and poems and songs without words that drop into our lives from the sudden flash of stranger eyes, or the accidental touch of an unknown hand, or the tender warmth of a swift smile! And if our eyes, our touch, our smiles may only have floated off in like manner—as dreams and poems and melody—to give added rhythm and harmony to other lives.