when it was finished and the applause had died away, and he had
bowed and left the little stage, she could not wait a moment.

'Take me to him,' she said to Don Alberto, rising from her seat.

'He will come here himself in a few minutes,' objected Altieri.

'Take me to him,' she repeated more imperiously. 'If you will not, I
shall go alone.'

There was nothing for it but to obey, and Don Alberto led her quickly
out of the portico to the carriage entrance at the back, then through a
vaulted passage, and up a flight of half-a-dozen steps to the room to
which the performers retired, and which had another exit towards the
garden and the back of the stage.

When Don Alberto opened the door Stradella was just within, evidently
about to come away, and he started in surprise when he saw his wife
enter. The other musicians were standing in groups of three and four,
with their instruments in their hands, for the place was completely bare
of furniture; there was not so much as a table on which to lay a fiddle
or a flute, but across one corner a piece of tattered canvas had been
hung to cut off a dressing-room for the improvisatrice, who had already
got into her own clothes and was gone away with old Nena and the
handsome young man.

Stradella met his wife with a happy smile and nodded a greeting to Don
Alberto, who remained in the door-way.

'Can you take me home at once?' Ortensia asked. 'Or must you go in?'

Stradella saw her look of distress as he took her outstretched hand in
both of his.

'I am not wanted, am I?' he asked, looking at young Altieri. 'My wife
wishes to go home, you see----'

'I will make your excuses to the Queen,' Don Alberto answered readily.
'My carriage is waiting and shall take you to the palace and come back
for me.'

'How kind of you!'

Ortensia thought he was already beginning to fulfil his promise of
friendship to her. He had, in fact, brought the couple to the Palazzo
Riario in his own carriage, for there were no hackney coaches in Rome in
that century, and people who owned no equipage were obliged to have
themselves carried in sedan-chairs, from one end of the city to the
other if necessary, unless they preferred to ride on mules or donkeys,
which was not convenient in full dress.

In five minutes Stradella and his wife were driving rapidly over the
cobble-stones towards Ponte Sisto, and Ortensia was telling the
astonished musician what had taken place between her and Don Alberto,
wi