'She is in the darkness: I am in the light. I am a blot upon the light;
she is light in the darkness.'

Montini poured this out with so fine a sentiment that the impatience of
the house for sight of its heroine was quieted. But Irma and Lebruno
came forward barely under tolerance.

'We might as well be thumping a tambourine,' said Lebruno, during a
caress. Irma bit her underlip with mortification. Their notes fell flat
as bullets against a wall.

This circumstance aroused the ire of Antonio-Pericles against the
libretto and revolutionists. 'I perceive,' he said, grinning savagely,
'it has come to be a concert, not an opera; it is a musical harangue in
the marketplace. Illusion goes: it is politics here!'

Carlo Ammiani was sitting with his mother and Luciano breathlessly
awaiting the entrance of Vittoria. The inner box-door was rudely shaken:
beneath it a slip of paper had been thrust. He read a warning to him to
quit the house instantly. Luciano and his mother both counselled his
departure. The detestable initials 'B. R.,' and the one word 'Sbirri,'
revealed who had warned, and what was the danger. His friend's advice
and the commands of his mother failed to move him. 'When I have seen her
safe; not before,' he said.

Countess Ammiani addressed Luciano: 'This is a young man's love for a
woman.'

'The woman is worth it,' Luciano replied.