“You are as mad at the pit of the Fenice, who hissed me!  I scorned the vulgar crowd for not being able to mount with me to the heights whence we reign over art, and I appeal to men of mark, to a Frenchman —­Why, he is gone!”

“Half an hour ago,” said Vendramin.

“That is a pity.  He, perhaps, would have understood me, since Italians, lovers of art, do not—­”

“On you go!” said Capraja, with a smile, and tapping lightly on the tenor’s head.  “Ride off on the divine Ariosto’s hippogriff; hunt down your radiant chimera, musical visionary as you are!”

In point of fact, all the others, believing that Genovese was drunk, let him talk without listening to him.  Capraja alone had understood the case put by the French physician.

While the wine of Cyprus was loosening every tongue, and each one was prancing on his favorite hobby, the doctor, in a gondola, was waiting for the Duchess, having sent her a note written by Vendramin.  Massimilla appeared in her night wrapper, so much had she been alarmed by the tone of the Prince’s farewell, and so startled by the hopes held out by the letter.

“Madame,” said the Frenchman, as he placed her in a seat and desired the gondoliers to start, “at this moment Prince Emilio’s life is in danger, and you alone can save him.”

“What is to be done?” she asked.

“Ah!  Can you resign yourself to play a degrading part—­in spite of the noblest face to be seen in Italy?  Can you drop from the blue sky where you dwell, into the bed of a courtesan?  In short, can you, an angel of refinement, of pure and spotless beauty, condescend to imagine what the love must be of a Tinti—­in her room, and so effectually as to deceive the ardor of Emilio, who is indeed too drunk to be very clear-sighted?”

“Is that all?” said she, with a smile that betrayed to the Frenchman a side he had not as yet perceived of the delightful nature of an Italian woman in love.  “I will out-do la Tinti, if need be, to save my friend’s life.”

“And you will thus fuse into one two kinds of love, which he sees as distinct—­divided by a mountain of poetic fancy, that will melt away like the snow on a glacier under the beams of the midsummer sun.”

“I shall be eternally your debtor,” said the Duchess, gravely.

When the French doctor returned to the gallery, where the orgy had by this time assumed the stamp of Venetian frenzy, he had a look of satisfaction which the Prince, absorbed by la Tinti, failed to observe; he was promising himself a repetition of the intoxicating delights he had known.  La Tinti, a true Sicilian, was floating on the tide of a fantastic passion on the point of being gratified.

The doctor whispered a few words to Vendramin, and la Tinti was uneasy.

“What are you plotting?” she inquired of the Prince’s friend.

“Are you kind-hearted?” said the doctor in her ear, with the sternness of an operator.