pause she sang clear out--

"Prima d'Italia amica;"

and hung on the last note, to be sure that she would be heard by him.

Braintop saw the cigarette dash into sparks on the grass. At the
same moment a snarl of critical vituperation told Emilia that she had
offended taste and her father. He shouted her name, and, striding up
to her, stumbled over Braintop, whom he caught with one hand, while the
other fell firmly on Emilia.

"'Amica--amica-a-a,'" he burlesqued her stress of the luckless
note--lowing it at her, and telling her in triumphant Italian that she
was found at last. Braintop, after a short struggle, and an effort at
speech, which was loosely shaken in his mouth, heard that he stood
a prisoner. "Eh! you have not lost your cheeks," insulted his better
acquaintance with English slang.

Alternately in this queer tongue and in Italian the pair of victims were
addressed.

Emilia knew her father's temper. He had a habit of dallying with an evil
passion till it boiled over and possessed him. Believing Braintop to
be in danger of harm, she beckoned to some of the faces crowding the
windows; but the movement was not seen, as none of the circumstances
were at all understood. Wilfrid, however, knew well who had sung those
three bars, concerning which the 'Prima donna' questioned Mr. Pericles,
and would not be put off by hearing that it was a startled jackdaw,
or an owl, and an ole nightingale. The Greek rubbed his hands. "Now to
recommence," he said; "and we shall not notice a jackdaw again." His eye
went sideways watchfully at Wilfrid. "You like zat piece of opera?"

"Immensely," said Wilfrid, half bowing to the Signora--to whom, as to
Majesty, Mr. Pericles introduced him, and fixed him.

"Now! To seats!"

Mr. Pericles' mandates was being obeyed, when a cry of "Wilfrid!" from
Emilia below, raised a flutter.

Mr. Pole had been dozing in his chair. He rose at the cry, looking hard,
with a mechanical jerk of the neck, at two or three successive faces,
and calling, "Somebody--somebody" to take his outstretched hand
trembling in a paroxysm of nervous terror.

Hearing his son's name again, but more faintly, he raised his voice
for Martha. "Don't let that girl come near me! I--I can't get on with
foreign girls!"

His eyes went among the curious faces surrounding him. "Wilfrid!" he
shouted. To the second summons, "Sir" was replied, in the silence.
Neither saw the other as they spoke.

"Are you going out to