"She is the daughter of my foster-father."
"O--h! The Gualtieri's daughter. And her you will marry? Marry?"
"You cannot possibly imagine how charming she is," murmured Gesa.
"That the Gualtieri's daughter is charming I can easily imagine," said the virtuoso, and there came suddenly into his eyes an expression of dreamy passion to which they were quite unaccustomed, "but that a man would want to marry the Gualtieri's daughter, I cannot understand. Perhaps you do not know who the Gualtieri was."
Gesa bit his lip.
"She made my foster-father happy."
"So--hm! Made him happy! He was mad as we all were. To have been permitted to black her shoes would have made him happy. I know the history of Delileo's marriage. It is a legend which they still relate in artist circles, only they have got the names wrong. I know the right names because ... Delileo interests me for your sake, and--and--because the Gualtieri ... was my first love!"
Gesa shrank back. "Your first love!" he repeated, breathlessly.
The virtuoso passed his hand over his forehead and smiled bitterly. "Yes! I became acquainted with her in the salon of the d'Agoult. I looked like a girl myself then, was scarcely eighteen years old, and in love! Oh! in love! She laughed at me--I fretted myself with vain desire, she would never notice me. I cannot hear her name now after twenty years without feeling as I did then. Heavens! How beautiful she was! Form, smile, tresses! Dark hair with auburn lights in neck and temples--as if powdered with gold dust. Withal a certain grand carriage...."
The virtuoso ceased and gazed musingly into vacancy. The remembrance of the Gualtieri was a sore spot in his heart. Gesa looked, deeply moved, into the changed countenance of his friend.