jealousy. The Duchess no doubt shared Emilio's feelings; she looked
gloomy and was evidently depressed. The Duke, uncomfortable enough
between two sulky people, took advantage of the French doctor's
entrance to slip away.

"Monsieur," said Cataneo to his physician before dropping the curtain
over the entrance to the box, "you will hear to-night a grand musical
poem, not easy of comprehension at a first hearing. But in leaving you
with the Duchess I know that you can have no more competent
interpreter, for she is my pupil."

The doctor, like the Duke, was struck by the expression stamped on the
faces of the lovers, a look of pining despair.

"Then does an Italian opera need a guide to it?" he asked Massimilla,
with a smile.

Recalled by this question to her duties as mistress of the box, the
Duchess tried to chase away the clouds that darkened her brow, and
replied, with eager haste, to open a conversation in which she might
vent her irritation:--

"This is not so much an opera, monsieur," said she, "as an oratorio--a
work which is in fact not unlike a most magnificent edifice, and I
shall with pleasure be your guide. Believe me, it will not be too much
to give all your mind to our great Rossini, for you need to be at once
a poet and a musician to appreciate the whole bearing of such a work.

"You belong to a race whose language and genius are too practical for
it to enter into music without an effort; but France is too