and glowing!"

"You know why I do that!" said she. "He is an enamored fool, whom I
would win with tender words that I may make him my instrument. You know
the object for which I strive, and which I must attain at any price! Ah,
Carlo, when once they have crowned me in the capitol, then, I am sure,
you will be compelled to love me again!"

"Never again!" he harshly and roughly said.

"Is that your last word?" shrieked she, with flashing eyes and the wild
rage of a tigress.

"It is my last word!"

She flew to him like a mad person, seized his hands and fixedly stared
him in the face.

"Ungrateful!" said she, gnashing her teeth. "Is it thus you reward my
love, is this your return for all I have done for you? Can you forget
that it was I who withdrew you from poverty and baseness? What were you
but a poor, unnoticed singer in the streets, on whom people bestowed
scanty alms? Was it not I who rescued you from that shame, and clothed
you and gave you a home? Was it not I who gave you a name and procured
you consideration and respect by making you my singer and companion, and
allowing you to play upon the harp at my improvisations? How has not
all Rome admired you when you sang the canzones I wrote for you, thereby
procuring you honor and respectability, and making you a popular man
from a low beggar? Go, you cannot leave me, for you are my creature, my
property!"

He wildly thrust her aside, and his eyes flashed with indignation.
"Signora," said he, his lips tremulous with rage, "you have rent the
last band that bound me to you, and in twitting me of your benefits you
have annihilated them! We now have nothing in common with each other,
except perhaps mutual hatred, and that, I hope, will have a longer
duration than our love!"

And Carlo turned toward the door. Corilla rushed after him with an
exclamation of terror.

"You will leave me now!" cried she, with anguish, "now, in this hour
when you are so indispensable to me? now, when I am to celebrate a new
triumph before this notable assembly? when all eyes are expectantly
turned to the curtain behind which I am to appear? No, no, Carlo, from
compassion remain with me only one hour, only this evening!"

Carlo smiled contemptuously. "I will remain," said he, "for I have
promised _her_ that she shall hear you!"

"She has therefore come?" cried Corilla, with an outburst of joy.

"She is now here," he laconically said.

Corilla no longer listened to him, she walke