General Pierson may have noticed this by-play:  he said to his nephew in the brief military tone:  ’Go out; see that the whole regiment is handy about the house; station a dozen men, with a serjeant, at each of the backdoors, and remain below.  I very much mistake, or we shall have to make a capture of this little woman to-night.’

‘How on earth,’ he resumed, while Wilfrid rose savagely and went out with his stiffest bow, ’this opera was permitted to appear, I can’t guess!  A child could see through it.  The stupidity of our civil authorities passes my understanding—­it’s a miracle!  We have stringent orders not to take any initiative, or I would stop the Fraulein Camilla from uttering another note.’

‘If you did that, I should be angry with you, General,’ said Countess Anna.

‘And I also think the Government cannot do wrong,’ Countess Lena joined in.

The General contented himself by saying:  ‘Well, we shall see.’

Countess Lena talked to Captain Weisspriess in an undertone, referring to what she called his dispute with Carlo Ammiani.  The captain was extremely playful in rejoinders.

‘You iron man!’ she exclaimed.

‘Man of steel would be the better phrase,’ her sister whispered.

‘It will be an assassination, if it happens.’

‘No officer can bear with an open insult, Lena.’

‘I shall not sit and see harm done to my old playmate, Anna.’

‘Beware of betraying yourself for one who detests you.’

A grand duo between Montini and Vittoria silenced all converse.  Camilla tells Camillo of her dream.  He pledges his oath to discover her mother, if alive; if dead, to avenge her.  Camilla says she believes her mother is in the dungeons of Count Orso’s castle.  The duo tasked Vittoria’s execution of florid passages; it gave evidence of her sound artistic powers.

‘I was a fool,’ thought Antonio-Pericles; ’I flung my bouquet with the herd.  I was a fool!  I lost my head!’

He tapped angrily at the little ink-flask in his coat-pocket.  The first act, after scenes between false Camillo and Michiella, ends with the marriage of Camillo and Camilla;—­a quatuor composed of Montini, Vittoria, Irma, and Lebruno.  Michiella is in despair; Count Orso is profoundly sonorous with paternity and devotion to the law.  He has restored to Camilla a portion of her mother’s sequestrated estates.  A portion of the remainder will be handed over to her when he has had experience of her husband’s good behaviour.  The rest he considers legally his own by right of (Treaties), and by right of possession and documents his sword.  Yonder castle he must keep.  It is the key of all his other territories.  Without it, his position will be insecure.  (Allusion to the Austrian argument that the plains of Lombardy are the strategic defensive lines of the Alps.)