is
screw-stool that many no doubt talked before him as if nobody had been
there.

Gerald did not dislike Ceccherelli, really, only had him on his nerves
in relation to Aurora. He felt him, indeed, rather likeable at a
distance, as part of a story; he had the good point of being an
individual. Gerald was in general touched to benevolence at sight of a
poor devil elated by his little draught of success. To Ceccherelli
without a doubt the patronage of the wealthy American represented
success. Ceccherelli pulling out his gold watch was a disarming vision.

Gerald cherished a hope, born of curiosity, that he might witness some
exhibition of Ceccherelli's _spirito_, or wit, and upon an evening
when the pianist dropped in after dinner was on the alert for
manifestations....

It may here be inserted that upon being asked to remain for dinner
Gerald had artfully delayed answering until he had made sure that
Clotilde did not dine with the ladies. Their familiarity had made him
fear it. Highly as he was prepared to esteem Clotilde, the meal would,
with her making the fourth, have lost for him those points on account of
which he prized it. But he gathered that she found it more convenient to
take her meals in private. In rejoicing for himself, he rejoiced also
for her, eating in holy peace, as he pictured her doing, the dishes of
her country, cooked with oil and onion; pouring the wine of her country
from a good fat flask such as never found its place on the table of the
strangers.

To go back: Gerald when after dinner the pianist came to make music for
the ladies, was hoping for some example of that brightness for which he
had a reputation with three persons, possibly more. But Ceccherelli
remained on the piano-stool and never once raised his voice. Estelle and
Aurora went in turns to chat with him there, but not one witty word
reached Gerald. Then he had the sense to see that it was he, Gerald, who
acted as a spoil-feast, a dampener. He got an outside view of himself,
stiff, dry, critical, ungenial-looking. It was not to be wondered at
that the flow of spirits was dried up in the man of temperament by his
vicinity. He suspected, catching a side-look from the pianist's small
brown eye, that the little man who did not care to speak aloud in his
hearing yet had plenty to say on the subject of him in a different
entourage.

This notwithstanding, it was only when Gerald got whiffs and echoes of
Ceccherelli through Aurora that h