"'
"They knew it was 'The Chaplet' because they had heard it played
at luncheon and afternoon tea, and at supper the night before, and
had not had time to forget.
"'Yes, he is playing "The Chaplet,"' they reassured one another.
The general voice was unanimous on the subject. The orchestra had
already played it eleven times that day, four times by desire and
seven times from force of habit, but the familiar strains were
greeted with the rapture due to a revelation. A murmur of much
humming rose from half the tables in the room, and some of the
more overwrought listeners laid down knife and fork in order to be
able to burst in with loud clappings at the earliest permissible
moment.
"And the Canetons ? la mode d'Ambl?ve? In stupefied, sickened
wonder Aristide watched them grow cold in total neglect, or suffer
the almost worse indignity of perfunctory pecking and listless
munching while the banqueters lavished their approval and applause
on the music-makers. Calves' liver and bacon, with parsley sauce,
could hardly have figured more ignominiously in the evening's
entertainment. And while the master of culinary art leaned back
against the sheltering pillar, choking with a horrible brain-
searing rage that could find no outlet for its agony, the
orchestra leader was bowing his acknowledgments of the hand-
clappings that rose in a storm around him.
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