"Hist! Let them go, let them go! I have nothing else to send, so I must stand or fall by your butter-toy. Alas for me, and you, too, sirrah, if the duke be vexed!" A strained silence fell upon the group in the rear passage as the flower-maidens crossed the main corridor and entered the banquet-hall. The grooms and maids exchanged significant nods and winks, old Vittori unconsciously pressed his keys tightly to his breast, Pasino withdrew into the shadow, and Tonin waited in acute suspense, wondering whether in his desire to relieve the seneschal's dilemma he had been guilty of a childish and ignorant blunder. As the seconds flew by, the boy's perplexity increased, and presently he was writhing with the fear that his offering would affront the duke, and perhaps even render him ridiculous before the lords and ladies who sat at the board. Sounds of harps and violins greeted them from beyond the velvet-hung portal, but none in the rear passage regarded the melody. Five minutes dragged by, and one of the flower-maidens stepped into the corridor. Each person in the rear passage started breathlessly forward to hear her message. "His grace desires the seneschal to come to him." "My-o! My-o!" groaned Vittori; "mercy knows what he'll do to me--and to you, too, Tonin Canova!" Pausing just long enough to settle his scarlet robe and adjust his linen neckcloth, the seneschal concealed his distress as well as he could, and walked sedately into the banquet-hall. Tonin locked his hands together in despair. "What a dunce I was--I, Tonin Canova, who has never been off this mountain--to dare to set up my little work before grand persons like those! Oh, oh! and poor Vittori may be discharged on account of it!" Suddenly the seneschal reappeared. "Tonin, you are wanted at once! His grace has sent for you. Hurry! Go on!" "Not in _there_!" gasped Tonin, retreating toward the stair door; "I should die of fright before those great folk." "Hurry, hurry, you impudent monkey! Do you think you can keep the Duke d'Asolo waiting?" To make an end of the argument, Vittori seized the boy by the arm, giving him a push that sent him into the banquet-room with a rush. Tonin was half-blinded by the myriads of lights, and quite dazed by the grandeur of the spectacle. He dimly comprehended that the vast apartment was hung with vines and banked with flowers; that a table like a huge cross ran the entire length and nearly the breadth of the room; that the Duke d'Asolo sat at the upper end, and that hosts of ladies and gentlemen in gorgeous raiment turned about in their chairs and fixed their eyes upon the young visitor. A scalding wave of shame rushed upward through Tonin's body, scorching his cheeks and dyeing his neck as he became conscious of his own workaday garb. He came to an abrupt stop, standing with downcast eyes before the Venetian company, a truly diverting figure with his loose blouse, rolled-up trousers and sleeves, bare arms, bare legs, and dripping apron.