nor Painter," she added, with another girlish laugh, "if we have
quarrelled enough to restore your nerves, I am going out. It is almost
dark, and I have to go to the Austrian Embassy before dinner, and the
carriage has been waiting for an hour."

"You, princess!" exclaimed Reanda, in surprise; for she had not begun to
go into the world yet since her husband's death.

"It is not a reception. We are to meet there about arranging another of
those charity concerts for the deaf and dumb."

"I might have known," answered the painter. "As for me, I shall go to
the theatre to-night. There is the Trovatore."

"That is a new thing for you, too. But I am glad. Amuse yourself, and
tell me about the singing to-morrow. Remember to lock the door and take
the key. I do not trust the masons in the morning."

"Do I ever forget?" asked Reanda. "But I will lock it now, as you go
out; for it is late, and I shall go upstairs."

"Good night," said Francesca, as she turned to leave the room.

"And you forgive the caricature?" asked Reanda, holding the door open
for her to pass.

"I would forgive you many things," she answered, smiling as she went
by.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN those days the Trovatore was not an old-fashioned opera. It was not
'threshed-out,' to borrow the vigorous German phrase. Wagner had not
eclipsed melody with 'tone-poetry,' nor made men feel more than they
could hear. Many of the great things of this century-ending had not been
done then, nor even dreamed of, and even musicians listened to the
Trovatore with pleasure, not dreaming of the untried strength that lay
waiting in Verdi's vast reserve. It was then the music of youth. To us
it seems but the music of childhood. Many of us cannot listen to
Manrico's death-song from the tower without hearing the grind-organ upon
which its passion has grown so pathetically poor. But one could
understand that music. The mere statement that it was comprehensible
raises a smile to-day. It appealed to simple feelings. We are no longer
satisfied with such simplicity, and even long for powers that do not
appeal, but twist us with something stronger than our hardened selves,
until we ourselves appeal to the unknown, in a sort of despairing
ecstasy of unsatisfied delight, asking of possibility to stretch itself
out to the impossible. We are in a strange phase of development. We see
the elaborately artificial world-scape painted by Science on the curtain
close before our eyes, but