allo with them is no mere affair of
dancing--fine dresses, evolutions performed by brigades of pink-legged
women with a fixed smile on their faces. It takes the rank of high
expressive art. And the motive of this Ballo was consistently worked
out in an intelligible sequence of well-ordered scenes. To moralise
upon its meaning would be out of place. It had a conflict of passions,
a rhythmical progression of emotions, a tragic climax in the triumph
of good over evil.

II

At the end of the performance there were five persons in our box--the
beautiful Miranda, and her husband, a celebrated English man of
letters; a German professor of biology; a young Milanese gentleman,
whom we called Edoardo; and myself. Edoardo and the professor had
joined us just before the ballet. I had occupied a seat behind Miranda
and my friend the critic from the commencement. We had indeed dined
together first at their hotel, the Rebecchino; and they now proposed
that we should all adjourn together there on foot for supper. From the
Scala Theatre to the Rebecchino is a walk of some three minutes.

When we were seated at the supper-table and had talked some while upon
indifferent topics, the enthusiasm roused in me by Pauline Lucca burst
out. I broke a moment's silence by exclaiming, 'What a wonder-world
music creates! I have lived this evening in a sphere of intellectual
enjoyment raised to rapture. I never lived so fast before!' 'Do
you really think so?' said Miranda. She had just finished a
_beccafico_, and seemed disposed for conversation. 'Do you really
think so? For my part, music is in a wholly different region from
experience, thought, or feeling. What does it communicate to you?' And
she hummed to herself the _motif_ of Cherubino's 'Non so piu
cosa son cosa faccio.'--'What does it teach me?' I broke in upon the
melody. 'Why, to-night, when I heard the music, and saw her there, and
felt the movement of the play, it seemed to me that a new existence
was revealed. For the first time I understood what love might be in
one most richly gifted for emotion.' Miranda bent her eyes on the
table-cloth and played with her wineglass. 'I don't follow you at all.
I enjoyed myself to-night. The opera, indeed, might have been better
rendered. The ballet, I admit, was splendid. But when I remember the
music--even the best of it--even Pauline Lucca's part'--here she
looked up, and shot me a quick glance across the table--'I have mere
music in my ears. N