the upper hand.  She frankly accused herself of jealousy, though she did not say of whom.  She almost admitted that when the time for reflection came, she should rejoice at his having sought her to plead for his friend rather than for her forgiveness.  In the end, but with a drooping pause of her bright swift look at Wilfrid, she promised to assist him in defeating any machinations against Vittoria’s happiness, and to keep him informed of Countess d’Isorella’s movements.  Wilfrid noticed the withdrawing fire of the look.  “By heaven! she doubts me still,” he ejaculated inwardly.

These half-comic little people have their place in the history of higher natures and darker destinies.  Wilfrid met Pericles, from whom he heard that Vittoria, with her husband’s consent, had pledged herself to sing publicly.  “It is for ze Lombard widows,” Pericles apologized on her behalf; “but, do you see, I only want a beginning.  She thaerst for ze stage; and it is, after marriage, a good sign.  Oh! you shall hear, my friend; marriage have done her no hurt—­ze contrary!  You shall hear Hymen—­Cupids—­not a cold machine; it is an organ alaif!  She has privily sung to her Pericles, and ser, and if I wake not very late on Judgement.  Day, I shall zen hear—­but why should I talk poetry to you, to make you laugh?  I have a divin’ passion for zat woman.  Do I not give her to a husband, and say, Be happy! onnly sing!  Be kissed! be hugged! onnly give Pericles your voice.  By Saint Alexandre! it is to say to ze heavens, Move on your way, so long as you drop rain on us r—­you smile—­you look kind.”

Pericles accompanied him into a caffe, the picture of an enamoured happy man.  He waived aside contemptuously all mention of Vittoria’s having enemies.  She had them when, as a virgin, she had no sense.  As a woman, she had none, for she now had sense.  Had she not brought her husband to be sensible, so that they moved together in Milanese society, instead of stupidly fighting at Rome? so that what he could not take to himself—­the marvellous voice—­he let bless the multitude!  “She is the Beethoven of singers,” Pericles concluded.  Wilfrid thought so on the night when she sang to succour the Lombard widows.  It was at a concert, richly thronged; ostentatiously thronged with Austrian uniforms.  He fancied that he could not bear to look on her.  He left the house thinking that to hear her and see her and feel that she was one upon the earth, made life less of a burden.

This evening was rendered remarkable by a man’s calling out, “You are a traitress!” while Vittoria stood before the seats.  She became pale, and her eyelids closed.  No thinness was subsequently heard in her voice.  The man was caught as he strove to burst through the crowd at the entrance-door, and proved to be a petty bookseller of Milan, by name Sarpo, known as an orderly citizen.  When taken he was inflamed with liquor.  Next day the man was handed from the civil to the military authorities,