'I will,' said Gerald, with a glance that made her cheek crimson.

CHAPTER XIII. A CONTRACT

I am not certain that a great 'Impressario' of Paris or London would
have deemed the document which bound Gerald to his new master a very
formal instrument. But there was a document. It was written on a
fly-leaf of old Babbo's Breviary, and set forth duly that for certain
services to be afterward detailed, '_un certo Gherardi_'--so was he
called--was to eat, and drink, and be clothed; always providing that
there was meat, and drink, and wearables to give him; with certain
benefices--small contingent remainders--to accrue when times were
prosperous and patrons generous, and all this for the term of a
twelvemonth. Donna Gaetana stoutly fought for five years, then three,
and then two: but she was beaten in all her amendments, though she
argued her case ably. She showed, with a force derived from great
experience, that theirs was a profession wherein there was much to
learn; that the initial stages developed very few of those gifts which
won popular applause; that, consequently, the neophyte was anything but
a profitable colleague; and it was only when his education was perfected
that he could be expected to repay the cost of his early instruction.
'At the end of a year,' to borrow her own forcible language, 'he 'll
have smashed a dozen basins and broken twenty poles, and he 'll just be
as stiff in the back as you see him today.'

'He 'll have had enough of a weary life ere that,' muttered the Babbo.

'What have _you_ to complain of, I 'd like to know?' asked she fiercely;
'you that sit there all day like a prince on a throne, never so much as
giving a blast of a horn or a beat on the drum; but pulling a few cords
for your puppets, and making them patter about the stage while you tell
over the self-same story I heard forty years ago. Ah, if it was Pierno!
that was something indeed to hear! He came out with something new every
evening--droll fellow that he was--and could make the people laugh till
the Piazza rung again.'

'Well, well,' sighed Babbo, 'his drollery has cost him something. He cut
a jest upon the Cardinal Balfi, and they sent him to Molo di Gaeta, to
work at the galleys. My pulcinello may be stupid, but will not make me
finish my days in chains.'

Whether Marietta feared the effect these domestic discussions might
produce upon Gerald, newly come as he was among them, or that she
desired to talk with him mo