ns were recruits of the Bolognese Polizia; on
the track of the Guidascarpi, possibly. As he was not unlike Angelo
Guidascarpi in figure, he became uneasy lest they should blunder 'twixt
him and La Scala; and the notion of any human power stopping him short
of that destination, made Ammiani's hand perfectly firm. He drew on his
gloves, and named the place whither he was going, aloud. 'Excellency,'
said the waiter, while taking up and pretending to reckon the money for
the bill: 'they have asked me whether there are two Counts Ammiani in
Milan.' Carlo's eyebrows started. 'Can they be after me?' he thought,
and said: 'Certainly; there is twice anything in this world, and Milan
is the epitome of it.'

Acting a part gave him Agostino's catching manner of speech. The waiter,
who knew him now, took this for an order to say 'Yes.' He had evidently
a respect for Ammiani's name: Carlo supposed that he was one of Milan's
fighting men. A sort of answer leading to 'Yes' by a circuit and the
assistance of the hearer, was conveyed to the sbirri. They were true
Neapolitans quick to suspect, irresolute upon their suspicions. He was
soon aware that they were not to be feared more than are the general
race of bunglers, whom the Gods sometimes strangely favour. They
perplexed him: for why were they after him? and what had made them ask
whether he had a brother? He was followed, but not molested, on his way
to La Scala.

Ammiani's heart was in full play as he looked at the curtain of the
stage. The Night of the Fifteenth had come. For the first few moments
his strong excitement fronting the curtain, amid a great host of hearts
thumping and quivering up in the smaller measures like his own, together
with the predisposing belief that this was to be a night of events,
stopped his consciousness that all had been thwarted; that there
was nothing but plot, plot, counterplot and tangle, disunion, silly
subtlety, jealousy, vanity, a direful congregation of antagonistic
elements; threads all loose, tongues wagging, pressure here, pressure
there, like an uncertain rage in the entrails of the undirected earth,
and no master hand on the spot to fuse and point the intense distracted
forces.

The curtain, therefore, hung like any common opera-screen; big only with
the fate of the new prima donna. He was robbed even of the certainty
that Vittoria would appear. From the blank aspect of the curtain he
turned to the house, which was crowding fast, and was