‘He won’t be in the city four-and-twenty hours,’ said Wilfrid.

‘Well; you’ll keep your tongue silent.’

’By heavens!  Gambier, if you knew the insults we have to submit to!  The temper of angels couldn’t stand it.  I’m sorry enough for these fellows, with their confounded country, but it’s desperate work to be civil to them; upon my honour, it is!  I wish they would stand up and let us have it over.  We have to bear more from the women than the men.’

‘I leave you to cool,’ said Gambier.

The delayed absence of the maestro from his post at the head of the orchestra, where the musicians sat awaiting him, seemed to confirm a rumour that was now circling among the audience, warning all to prepare for a disappointment.  His baton was brought in and laid on the book of the new overture.  When at last he was seen bearing onward through the music-stands, a low murmur ran round.  Rocco paid no heed to it.  His demeanour produced such satisfaction in the breast of Antonio-Pericles that he rose, and was guilty of the barbarism of clapping his hands.  Meeting Ammiani in the lobby, he said, ’Come, my good friend, you shall help me to pull Irma through to-night.  She is vinegar—­we will mix her with oil.  It is only for to-night, to save that poor Rocco’s opera.’

‘Irma!’ said Ammiani; ’she is by this time in Tyrol.  Your Irma will have some difficulty in showing herself here within sixty hours.’

‘How!’ cried Pericles, amazed, and plucking after Carlo to stop him.  ’I bet you—­’

‘How much?’

‘I bet you a thousand florins you do not see la Vittoria to-night.’

‘Good.  I bet you a thousand florins you do not see Irma.’

‘No Vittoria, I say!’

‘And I say, no Lazzeruola!’

Agostino, who was pacing the lobby, sent Pericles distraught with the same tale of the rape of Irma.  He rushed to Signora Piaveni’s box and heard it repeated.  There he beheld, sitting in the background, an old English acquaintance, with whom Captain Gambier was conversing.

’My dear Powys, you have come all the way from England to see your favourite’s first night.  You will be shocked, sir.  She has neglected her Art.  She is exiled, banished, sent away to study and to compose her mind.’

‘I think you are mistaken,’ said Laura.  ’You will see her almost immediately.’

‘Signora, pardon me; do I not know best?’

‘You may have contrived badly.’

Pericles blinked and gnawed his moustache as if it were food for patience.

‘I would wager a milliard of francs,’ he muttered.  With absolute pathos he related to Mr. Powys the aberrations of the divinely-gifted voice, the wreck which Vittoria strove to become, and from which he alone was striving to rescue her.  He used abundant illustrations, coarse and quaint, and was half hysterical; flashing a white fist and thumping the long projection of his knee with a wolfish aspect.  His grotesque sincerity was little short of the shedding of tears.