es.

'He does pay,' Luigi reflected, seeing that immense virtue in his patron.
'Yes, he pays; but what is he about? It is this question for me--"Do I
serve my hand? or, Do I serve my heart?" My hand takes the money, and it
is not German money. My heart gives the affection, and the signorina has
my heart. She reached me that cigarette on the Motterone like the
Madonna: it is never to be forgotten! I serve my heart! Now, Beppo, you
may come; come quick for her. I see the carriage, and there are three
stout fellows in it who could trip and muzzle you at a signal from me
before you could count the letters of your father's baptismal name. Oh!
but if the signorina disobeys me and comes out last!--the Signor Antonio
will ask the maestro, who will say, "Yes, la Vittoria was here with me
last of the two"; and I lose my ten, my twenty, my thirty napoleons.'

Luigi's chest expanded largely with a melancholy draught of air.

The carriage meantime had become visible at the head of the street, where
it remained within hearing of a whistle. One of the Milanese hired
vehicles drove up to the maestro's door shortly after, and Luigi cursed
it. His worst fears for the future of the thirty napoleons were
confirmed; the door opened and the Maestro Rocco Ricci, bareheaded and in
his black silk dressing-gown, led out Irma di Karski, by some called
rival to la Vittoria; a tall Slavic damsel, whose laughter was not soft
and smooth, whose cheeks were bright, and whose eyes were deep in the
head and dull. But she had vivacity both of lips and shoulders. The
shoulders were bony; the lips were sharp and red, like winter-berries in
the morning-time. Freshness was not absent from her aspect. The critical
objection was that it seemed a plastered freshness and not true bloom; or
rather it was a savage and a hard, not a sweet freshness. Hence perhaps
the name which distinguished her la Lazzeruola (crab apple). It was a
freshness that did not invite the bite; sour to Italian taste.

She was apparently in vast delight. 'There will be a perfect inundation
to-morrow night from Prague and Vienna to see me even in so miserable a
part as Michiella,' she said. 'Here I am supposed to be a beginner; I am
no debutante there.'

'I can believe it, I can believe it,' responded Rocco, bowing for her
speedy departure.

'You are not satisfied with my singing of Michiella's score! Now, tell
me, kind, good, harsh old master! you think that Miss Vittoria would sing
i