ote _libretti_ for the stage, and articles for Republican and
Socialist newspapers. That was his world: the only thing that helped him
endure his stay in Milan. After a lonely life back there in his native
land, this corner of the smoke-filled cafe seemed like Paradise to him.
There, in a labored Italian, sprinkled with Spanish interjections, he
could talk of Beethoven and of the hero of Marsala; and for hour after
hour he would sit wrapt in ecstasy, gazing, through the dense
atmosphere, at the red shirt and the blond, grayish locks of the great
Giuseppe, while his comrades told stories of this, the most romantic, of
adventurers.

During such absences of her father, Leonora would remain in charge of
_Signora Isabella_; and bashful, shrinking, half bewildered, would spend
the day in the salon of the former ballet-dancer, with its coterie of
the latter's friends, also ruins surviving from the past, burned-out
"flames" of great personages long since dead. And these witches, smoking
their cigarettes, and looking their jewels over every other moment to be
sure they had not been stolen, would size up "the little girl," as they
called her, to conclude that she would "go very far" if she learned how
to "play the game."

"I had excellent teachers," said Leonora, in speaking of that period of
her youth. "They were good souls at bottom, but they had very little
still to learn about life. I don't remember just when I began to see
through them. I don't believe I was ever what they call an 'innocent'
child."

Some evenings the Doctor would take her to his group in the cafe, or to
some second balcony seat under the roof of _La Scala_, if a couple of
complimentary tickets happened to come his way. Thus she was introduced
to her father's friends, bohemians with whom music went hand in hand
with the ideas and the ideals of revolution, curious mixtures of artist
and conspirator; aged, bald-headed, near-sighted "professors," their
backs bent by a lifetime spent leaning over music stands; and swarthy
youths with fiery eyes, stiff, long hair and red neckties, always
talking about overthrowing the social order because their operas had
not been accepted at _La Scala_ or because no _maestro_ could be found
to take their musical dramas seriously. One of them attracted Leonora.
Leaning back on a side-seat in the cafe, she would sit and watch him for
hours and hours. He was a fair-haired, extremely delicate boy. His
tapering goatee and his fine