prima donna. They had commenced the opera in uncertainty whether it
could go on beyond the situation where Camilla presents herself. 'I was
prepared to throw up my baton,' said Rocco, 'and publicly to charge the
Government with the rape of our prima donna. Irma I was ready to
replace. I could have filled that gap.' He spoke of Vittoria's triumph.
Agostino's face darkened. 'Ha!' said he, 'provided we don't fall flat,
like your Asti with the cork out. I should have preferred an enthusiasm
a trifle more progressive. The notion of travelling backwards is upon me
forcibly, after that tempest of acclamation.'

'Or do you think that you have put your best poetry in the first Act?'
Rocco suggested with malice.

'Not a bit of it!' Agostino repudiated the idea very angrily, and puffed
and puffed. Yet he said, 'I should not be lamenting if the opera were
stopped at once.'

'No!' cried Rocco; 'let us have our one night. I bargain for that.
Medole has played us false, but we go on. We are victims already, my
Agostino.'

'But I do stipulate,' said Agostino, 'that my jewel is not to melt
herself in the cup to-night. I must see her. As it is, she is
inevitably down in the list for a week's or a month's incarceration.'

Antonio-Pericles had this, in his case, singular piece of delicacy, that
he refrained from the attempt to see Vittoria immediately after he had
flung his magnificent bouquet of treasure at her feet. In his
intoxication with the success which he had foreseen and cradled to its
apogee, he was now reckless of any consequences. He felt ready to take