“The less baggage the better, my dear.”

“But the king said that my singing—­I have no right to think it myself.”  Vittoria concluded her sentence with a comical intention of humility.

“It was a pretty compliment,” said Laura.  “You replied that singing is a poor thing in time of war, and I agree with you.  We might serve as hospital nurses.”

“Why do we not determine?”

“We are only considering possibilities.”

“Consider the impossibility of our remaining quiet.”

“Fire that goes to flame is a waste of heat, my Sandra.”

The signora, however, was not so discreet as her speech.  On all sides there was uproar and movement.  High-born Italian ladies were offering their hands for any serviceable work.  Laura and Vittoria were not alone in the desire which was growing to be resolution to share the hardships of the soldiers, to cherish and encourage them, and by seeing, to have the supreme joy of feeling the blows struck at the common enemy.

The opera closed when the king marched.  Carlo Ammiani’s letter was handed to Vittoria at the fall of the curtain on the last night.

Three paths were open to her:  either that she should obey her lover, or earn an immense sum of money from Antonio-Pericles by accepting an immediate engagement in London, or go to the war.  To sit in submissive obedience seemed unreasonable; to fly from Italy impossible.  Yet the latter alternative appealed strongly to her sense of duty, and as it thereby threw her lover’s commands into the background, she left it to her heart to struggle with Carlo, and thought over the two final propositions.  The idea of being apart from Italy while the living country streamed forth to battle struck her inflamed spirit like the shock of a pause in martial music.  Laura pretended to take no part in Vittoria’s decision, but when it was reached, she showed her a travelling-carriage stocked with lint and linen, wine in jars, chocolate, cases of brandy, tea, coffee, needles, thread, twine, scissors, knives; saying, as she displayed them, “there, my dear, all my money has gone in that equipment, so you must pay on the road.”

“This doesn’t leave me a choice, then,” said Victoria, joining her humour.

“Ah, but think over it,” Laura suggested.

“No! not think at all,” cried Vittoria.

“You do not fear Carlo’s anger?”

“If I think, I am weak as water.  Let us go.”

Countess d’Isorella wrote to Carlo:  “Your Vittoria is away after the king to Pavia.  They tell me she stood up in her carriage on the Ponte del Po-’Viva il Re d’Italia!’ waving the cross of Savoy.  As I have previously assured you, no woman is Republican.  The demonstration was a mistake.  Public characters should not let their personal preferences betrumpeted:  a diplomatic truism:—­but I must add, least of all a cantatrice for a king.  The famous Greek amateur—­the prop of failing finances—­is after her to arrest her for breach of engagement.  You wished to discover an independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you not?  One would suppose her your wife—­or widow.  She looked a superb thing the last night she sang.  She is not, in my opinion, wanting in height.  If, behind all that innocence and candour, she has any trained artfulness, she will beat us all.  Heaven bless your arms!”