The curtain, therefore, hung like any common opera-screen; big only with the fate of the new prima donna.  He was robbed even of the certainty that Vittoria would appear.  From the blank aspect of the curtain he turned to the house, which was crowding fast, and was not like listless Milan about to criticize an untried voice.  The commonly empty boxes of the aristocracy were full of occupants, and for a wonder the white uniforms were not in excess, though they were to be seen.  The first person whom Ammiani met was Agostino, who spoke gruffly.  Vittoria had been invisible to him.  Neither the maestro, nor the impresario, nor the waiting-woman had heard of her.  Uncertainty was behind the curtain, as well as in front; but in front it was the uncertainty which is tipped with expectation, hushing the usual noisy chatter, and setting a daylight of eyes forward.  Ammiani spied about the house, and caught sight of Laura Piaveni with Colonel Corte by her side.  The Lenkensteins were in the Archduke’s box.  Antonio-Pericles, and the English lady and Captain Gambier, were next to them.  The appearance of a white uniform in his mother’s box over the stage caused Ammiani to shut up his glass.  He was making his way thither for the purpose of commencing the hostilities of the night, when Countess Ammiani entered the lobby, and took her son’s arm with a grave face and a trembling touch.

CHAPTER XIX

THE PRIMA DONNA

‘Whover is in my box is my guest,’ said the countess, adding a convulsive imperative pressure on Carlo’s arm, to aid the meaning of her deep underbreath.  She was a woman who rarely exacted obedience, and she was spontaneously obeyed.  No questions could be put, no explanations given in the crash, and they threaded on amid numerous greetings in a place where Milanese society had habitually ceased to gather, and found itself now in assembly with unconcealed sensations of strangeness.  A card lay on the table of the countess’s private retiring-room:  it bore the name of General Pierson.  She threw off her black lace scarf.  ’Angelo Guidascarpi is in Milan,’ she said.  ’He has killed one of the Lenkensteins, sword to sword.  He came to me an hour after you left; the sbirri were on his track; he passed for my son.  He is now under the charge of Barto Rizzo, disguised; probably in this house.  His brother is in the city.  Keep the cowl on your head as long as possible; if these hounds see and identify you, there will be mischief.’  She said no more, satisfied that she was understood, but opening the door of the box, passed in, and returned a stately acknowledgement of the salutations of two military officers.  Carlo likewise bent his head to them; it was like bending his knee, for in the younger of the two intruders he recognized Lieutenant Pierson.  The countess accepted a vacated seat; the cavity of her ear accepted the General’s apologies.  He informed her that he deeply regretted