XXIX
The yellow lamp flames were burning late in the cabinet of Girolamo
Magagnati, who took less note of the difference between evening hours
and those of early dawn since there was no longer in his household a
beloved one to guard from weariness. Nay, the night was rather the time
in which he might forget himself and plunge more whole-heartedly into
his schemes of work--financial or creative. For the world was surely on
the eve of discoveries important to his art, and it would be well if he
might secure them, before his working days should pass, for the
Stabilimento Magagnati.
Piero Salin stood in the doorway as he glanced up from the drawings that
littered his table--the dark oak table which had seemed a centre of
cheer to Girolamo, when, in this very chamber, his child had made a
radiance for him in which the lines of his life shone large and
satisfying.
Girolamo never seemed to remember that this son-in-law was a great man
among the people; to him he was only Piero Salin, barcariol; the single
token of the old man's favor was that in his thought he no longer added
the despicable word _toso_; and it was a proof that he was mellowing
with the years, for Girolamo never forgot this unwelcome and
dishonorable past, and Piero was always ill at ease in his presence.
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