ary was
his fixed purpose, even though the pianist, at last appreciated, put
into his playing so much feeling and force. Gerald's eyes went wandering
among the clutter of bric-a-brac, from a green bronze lizard to a mosaic
picture of Roman peasants, from a leaning tower of Pisa to a Sorrento
box. Then they rose to the paintings. He closed them.

The music was describing a hero's death-bed, besieged by dreams of
battle, at moments so noisy that Gerald had to open his eyes again for a
look of curiosity at the person who could produce so much sound. As he
watched him and his nose, like the magnified beak of a hen,--the nose of
a man who loves to talk,--he tried a little to imagine those merry
evenings spoken of by Aurora. The fellow looked almost ludicrously
solemn at this moment. He took himself and his art right seriously,
there could be no doubt of it. His face was a map of the emotions
expressed by the music, and wore, besides, according to his conception
of the part, the look of a great man unacclaimed by his own generation.

_Dio!_ what an ugly little man!

Gerald closed his eyes again.

The last cannon was fired over the hero's grave, the music stopped. The
ladies applauded. Gerald, smiling sickly, clapped his hands, too,
without, it might have been observed, making any noise to speak of.
Estelle went to the piano to compliment the player more articulately,
and loitered there, practising her French while he perfected himself in
English, by mutual aid.

"Italo," Mrs. Hawthorne interrupted them, "play that lovely thing of
your own now--you know, the one we're so crazy about, that by and by
turns into a waltz."

Without laying upon the ladies the tiresome necessity of pressing him,
the composer plunged into this masterpiece, and Gerald sat back again,
wondering what the little man thought of hearing himself called Italo by
the fair _forestiera_. He was dimly troubled, knowing that there is
no hope of an Italian ever really understanding the ways of being and
doing of American women, and especially an Italian of that class. But
then it would be equally difficult to make this American woman
understand just how the Italian might misunderstand her.

He permitted himself a direct look at her, where she rested among the
cushions, with eyes closed again and a smile diffused all over her face;
her whole person, indeed, permeated with the essence of a smile.
Extraordinary that, loving music so much, one could so much lo