ation. The
ever-shifting baritono, from behind a pillar, has joined in with an
aside phrase here and there. Leonardo discovers that his fealty to
Camilla is reviving. He determines to watch over her. Camillo now tosses
a perfumed handkerchief under his nose, and inhales the coxcombical
incense of the idea that he will do all without Camilla's aid, to
surprise her; thereby teaching her to know him to be somewhat a hero.
She has played her part so thoroughly that he can choose to fancy her
a giddy person; he remarks upon the frequent instances of girls who in
their girlhood were wild dreamers becoming after marriage wild wives.
His followers assemble, that he may take advantage of the exchanged
key of silver. He is moved to seek one embrace of Camilla before the
conflict:--she is beautiful! There was never such beauty as hers! He
goes to her in the fittest preparation for the pangs of jealousy. But he
has not been foremost in practising the uses of silver keys. Michiella,
having first arranged with her father to be before Camillo's doors at a
certain hour with men-at-arms, is in Camilla's private chamber, with her
hand upon a pregnant box of ebony wood, when she is startled by a noise,
and slips into concealment. Leonardo bursts through the casement window.
Camilla then appears. Leonardo stretches the tips of his fingers out to
her; on his knees confesses his guilt and warns her. Camillo comes in.
Thrusting herself before him, Michiella points to the stricken couple
'See! it is to show you this that I am here.' Behold occasion for a
grand quatuor!

While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has excused it by an
emphatic delineation of Michiella's magic sway over him. (Leonardo, in
fact, is your small modern Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning,
for the reason that he is always at a last moment the victim of his
poor bit of heart or honesty: he is devoid of the inspiration of great
patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has any love, it is
for such a tool. She cannot afford to lose him. She pleads for him; and,
as Camilla is silent on his account, the cynical magnanimity of Camillo
is predisposed to spare a fangless snake. Michiella withdraws him from
the naked sword to the back of the stage. The terrible repudiation scene
ensues, in which Camillo casts off his wife. If it was a puzzle to one
Italian half of the audience, the other comprehended it perfectly, and
with rapture. It was thus that YOUNG I