orship has passed it; and surely
I alone am responsible for singing what is not in the book--I and the
maestro. He supports me. We have both taken precautions' (she smiled)
'to secure our property. If you are despoiled, we will share with you.
And believe, oh! in God's name, believe that you will not suffer to no
purpose!'

Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement. He declared that he
had been miserably deceived and entrapped. He threatened to send the
company to their homes forthwith. 'Dare to!' said Agostino; and to judge
by the temper of the house, it was only too certain, that if he did so,
La Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morning. But Agostino
backed his entreaty to her to abjure that song; Rocco gave way, and
half shyly requested her to think of prudence. She remembered Laura, and
Carlo, and her poor little frightened foreign mother. Her intense
ideal conception of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the
pilot-star dances on the bows of a tossing vessel. All were against her,
as the tempest is against the ship. Even light above (by which I would
image that which she could appeal to pleading in behalf of the wisdom
of her obstinate will) was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration; she
failed to recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her
settled course. Her sole idea was her holding her country by an unseen
thread, and of the everlasting welfare of Italy being jeopardized if she
relaxed her hold. Simple obstinacy of will sustained her.

You mariners batten down the hatchways when the heavens are dark and
seas are angry. Vittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the
avenues to her senses--would see nothing, hear nothing. The impresario's
figure of despair touched her later. Giacinta drove him forth in the act
of smiting his forehead with both hands. She did the same for Agostino
and Rocco, who were not demonstrative.

They knew that by this time the agents of the Government were in all
probability ransacking their rooms, and confiscating their goods.

'Is your piano hired?' quoth the former.

'No,' said the latter, 'are your slippers?'

They went their separate ways, laughing.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THIRD ACT

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment of Young
Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your mind's hearing any notion of the
fine music of Rocco Ricci, and touch you to feel the revelations which
were in this new voice. Roc