Who, then, had been accountable for the roar at the other end of the
house? An imitator? A double? Gerald suspected a masked-ball device
intended to intrigue. He gave it no more thought, but proceeded, started
on that line by the episode, to reflect on the singularity, yes, the
crassness, of Mrs. Hawthorne's determination to leave the ball early.
The secret of it was, of course, that she had no imagination, no
education of the imagination. A _veglione_ was caviar to her. This
wonderful scene, beheld for the first time, perhaps the only time in
life, and she had had to go to bed just as if they had been in Boston or
Charlestown! If one must go to church in such a case, it was Gerald's
opinion, one does not go to bed at all. But she belonged to the class of
people who would miss the last act of an opera rather than miss a train
or allow the beans to burn. A bread-and-butter person, a sluggish,
fat-brained person, elementary, not awakened and sharpened to
appreciation and wonder. If he had not been in such a good humor he
might have been cross, scornful of her; as it was, he indulgently
thought her merely too flatly healthy in every taste for anything but
the wilds of Cape Cod to which she sometimes playfully referred.

He here perceived that he had entirely lost the thread of Guerra's talk,
and that Guerra, probably aware of it, had moved to another subject. It
was hearing the name Hawthorne that had startled him to attention.

"I saw you earlier in the evening in a box with Mrs. Hawthorne," Guerra
said, "whom, you remember, I had the pleasure of meeting at Mrs.
Grangeon's."

After considering a moment with a half-smile, he nodded and pronounced
in the tone of an impartial critic, "_Simpatica_!" Then, after
considering another moment, nodded again. "_Ha gli occhi di donna
buona._" Which means, or nearly, "She has good eyes." And Gerald's
esteem for Guerra was immensely raised, for while thinking very well of
him, he would yet not have expected a man like Guerra to discern so much
at a first meeting. A worldling like Guerra might so naturally have said
"_E bella_!" for Aurora that evening in her best frock, had been
_bella_--beautiful; or he might have said, "_Begli occhi_!"
for her shining blue eyes admitted of that description. That Guerra had
said what he said indicated finer feeling than Gerald had given him
credit for.

Still lingering in desultory talk, the former journalist now asked:

"Have you seen the Gra