Laura, and Vittoria’s unwavering replies, less frequent, but firmer, and gravely solid. Laura spent her energy in taunts, but Vittoria spoke only of her resolve, and to the point. It was, as his military instincts framed the simile, like the venomous crackling of skirmishing rifles before a fortress, that answered slowly with its volume of sound and sweeping shot. He had the vision of himself pleading to secure her safety, and in her hearing, on the Motterone, where she had seemed so simple a damsel, albeit nobly enthusiastic: too fair, too gentle to be stationed in any corner of the conflict at hand. Partly abased by the remembrance of his brainless intercessions then, and of the laughter which had greeted them, and which the signora had recently recalled, it was nevertheless not all in self-abasement (as the momentary recognition of a splendid character is commonly with men) that he perceived the stature of Vittoria’s soul. Remembering also what the Chief had spoken of women, Ammiani thought ‘Perhaps he has known one such as she.’ The passion of the young man’s heart magnified her image. He did not wonder to see the signora acknowledge herself worsted in the conflict.
‘She talks like the edge of a sword,’ cried Laura, desperately, and dropped into a chair. ‘Take her home, and convince her, if you can, on the way, Carlo. I go to the Duchess of Graatli to-night. She has a reception. Take this girl home. She says she will sing: she obeys the Chief, and none but the Chief. We will not suppose that it is her desire to shine. She is suspected; she is accused; she is branded; there is no general faith in her; yet she will hold the torch to-morrow night:—and what ensues? Some will move, some turn back, some run headlong over to treachery, some hang irresolute all are for the shambles! The blood is on her head.’
‘I will excuse myself to you another time,’ said Vittoria. ‘I love you, Signora Laura.’
‘You do, you do, or you would not think of excusing yourself to me,’ said Laura. ‘But now, go. You have cut me in two. Carlo Ammiani may succeed where I have failed, and I have used every weapon; enough to make a mean creature hate me for life and kiss me with transports. Do your best, Carlo, and let it be your utmost.’
It remained for Ammiani to assure her that their views were different.
‘The signorina persists in her determination to carry out the programme indicated by the Chief, and refuses to be diverted from her path by the false suspicions of subordinates.’ He employed a sententious phraseology instinctively, as men do when they are nervous, as well as when they justify the cynic’s definition of the uses of speech. ‘The signorina is, in my opinion, right. If she draws back, she publicly accepts the blot upon her name. I speak against my own feelings and my wishes.’
‘Sandra, do you hear?’ exclaimed Laura. ‘This is a friend’s interpretation of your inconsiderate wilfulness.’
Vittoria was content to reply, ‘The Signor Carlo judges of me differently.’
‘Go, then, and be fortified by him in this headstrong folly.’ Laura motioned her hand, and laid it on her face.
Vittoria knelt and enclosed her with her arms, kissing her knees.
‘Beppo waits for me at the house-door,’ she said; but Carlo chose not to hear of this shadow-like Beppo.
‘You have nothing to say for her save that she clears her name by giving the signal,’ Laura burst out on his temperate ‘Addio,’ and started to her feet. ‘Well, let it be so. Fruitless blood again! A ‘rivederla’ to you both. To-night I am in the enemy’s camp. They play with open cards. Amalia tells me all she knows by what she disguises. I may learn something. Come to me to-morrow. My Sandra, I will kiss you. These shudderings of mine have no meaning.’
The signora embraced her, and took Ammiani’s salute upon her fingers.
‘Sour fingers!’ he said. She leaned her cheek to him, whispering, ‘I could easily be persuaded to betray you.’
He answered, ‘I must have some merit in not betraying myself.’
‘At each elbow!’ she laughed. ‘You show the thumps of an electric battery at each elbow, and expect your Goddess of lightnings not to see that she moves you. Go. You have not sided with me, and I am right, and I am a woman. By the way, Sandra mia, I would beg the loan of your Beppo for two hours or less.’
Vittoria placed Beppo at her disposal.
‘And you run home to bed,’ continued Laura. ‘Reason comes to you obstinate people when you are left alone for a time in the dark.’
She hardly listened to Vittoria’s statement that the chief singers in the new opera were engaged to attend a meeting at eleven at night at the house of the maestro Rocco Ricci.
CHAPTER XIII
THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO
There was no concealment as to Laura’s object in making request for the services of Beppo. She herself knew it to be obvious that she intended to probe and cross-examine the man, and in her wilfulness she chose to be obtuse to opinion. She did not even blush to lean a secret ear above the stairs that she might judge, by the tones of Vittoria’s voice upon her giving Beppo the order to wait, whether she was at the same time conveying a hint for guardedness. But Vittoria said not a word: it was Ammiani who gave the order. ‘I am despicable in distrusting her for a single second,’ said Laura. That did not the less encourage her to question Beppo rigorously forthwith; and as she was not to be deceived by an Italian’s affectation of simplicity, she let him answer two or three times like a plain fool, and then abruptly accused him of standing prepared with these answers. Beppo, within his own bosom, immediately ascribed to his sagacious instinct the mere spirit of opposition and dislike to serve any one save his own young mistress which had caused him to irritate the signora and be on his guard. He proffered a candid admission of the truth of the charge; adding, that he stood likewise prepared with an unlimited number of statements. ‘Questions, illustrious signora, invariably put me on the defensive, and seem to cry for a return thrust; and this I account for by the fact that my mother—the blessed little woman now among the Saints!—was questioned, brows and heels, by a ferruginously—faced old judge at the momentous period when she carried me. So that, a question—and I show point; but ask me for a statement, and, ah, signora!’ Beppo delivered a sweep of the arm, as to indicate the spontaneous flow of his tongue.
‘I think,’ said Laura, ‘you have been a soldier, and a serving-man.’
‘And a scene-shifter, most noble signora, at La Scala.’
‘You accompanied the Signor Mertyrio to England when he was wounded?’
‘I did.’
‘And there you beheld the Signorina Vittoria, who was then bearing the name of Emilia Belloni?’
‘Which name she changed on her arrival in Italy, illustrious signora, for that of Vittoria Campa—“sull’ campo dells gloria”—ah! ah!—her own name being an attraction to the blow-flies in her own country. All this is true.’
‘It should be a comfort to you! The Signor Mertyrio…’
Beppo writhed his person at the continuance of the questionings, and obtaining a pause, he rushed into his statement: ‘The Signor Mertyrio was well, and on the point of visiting Italy, and quitting the wave-embraced island of fog, of beer, of moist winds, and much money, and much kindness, where great hearts grew. The signorina corresponded with him, and with him only.’
‘You know that, and will swear to it?’ Laura exclaimed.
Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced beating for, swore to its truth profoundly,
