During this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting, but at last, “choked by his undertaking,” he desisted.

Presently “Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built village.”  He goes to the house of his beloved; she opens the door herself.  To my surprise—­for Ambulinia’s heart had still seemed free at the time of their last interview—­love beamed from the girl’s eyes.  One sees that Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught that light, “a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein.”  A neat figure—­a very neat figure, indeed!  Then he kissed her.  “The scene was overwhelming.”  They went into the parlor.  The girl said it was safe, for her parents were abed, and would never know.  Then we have this fine picture—­flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as you will notice.

Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before him.

There is nothing of interest in the couple’s interview.  Now at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the motive of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he is a jealous person.  But this is a sham, and pretty shallow.  McClintock merely wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or two in “Othello.”

The lovers went to the play.  Elfonzo was one of the fiddlers.  He and Ambulinia must not been seen together, lest trouble follow with the girl’s malignant father; we are made to understand that clearly.  So the two sit together in the orchestra, in the midst of the musicians.  This does not seem to be good art.  In the first place, the girl would be in the way, for orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is no room to spare for people’s girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a girl in an orchestra without everybody taking notice of it.  There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that this is bad art.

Leos is present.  Of course, one of the first things that catches his eye is the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia “leaning upon Elfonzo’s chair.”  This poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudiments of concealment.  But she is “in her seventeenth,” as the author phrases it, and that is her justification.

Leos meditates, constructs a plan—­with personal violence as a basis, of course.  It was their way down there.  It is a good plain plan, without any imagination in it.  He will go out and stand at the front door, and when these two come out he will “arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo,” and thus make for himself a “more prosperous field of immortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined.”  But, dear me, while he is waiting there the couple climb out at the back window and scurry home!  This is romantic enough, but there is a lack of dignity in the situation.