of it; but so far as the last act is concerned the opera certainly
conveys the impression that the heroine is a raving lunatic. Only a
crazy woman could express feeling in such an unusual way.

Cordova's face was nothing but a mask of powder, in which her handsome
brown eyes would have looked like two holes if she had not kept them
half shut under the heavily whitened lids; her hands were chalked too,
and they were like plaster casts of hands, cleverly jointed at the
wrists. She wore a garment which was supposed to be a nightdress,
which resembled a very expensive modern shroud, and which was
evidently put on over a good many other things. There was a deal of
lace on it, which fluttered when she made her hands shake to accompany
each trill, and all this really contributed to the general impression
of insanity. Possibly it was overdone; but if any one in the audience
had seen such a young person enter his or her room unexpectedly, and
uttering such unaccountable sounds, he or she would most assuredly
have rung for a doctor and a cab, and for a strait-jacket if such a
thing were to be had in the neighbourhood.

An elderly man, with very marked features and iron-grey hair, sat in
the fifth row of the stalls, on the right-hand aisle. He was a bony
man, and the people behind him noticed him and thought he looked
strong. He had heard Bonanni in her best days and many great lyric
sopranos from Patti to Melba, and he was thinking that none of them
had sung the mad scene better than Cordova, who had only been on the
stage two years, and was now in New York for the first time. But he
had already heard her in London and Paris, and he knew her. He had
first met her at a breakfast on board Logotheti's yacht at Cap Martin.
Logotheti was a young Greek financier who lived in Paris and wanted to
marry her. He was rather mad, and had tried to carry her off on the