‘And so can Fulvia be ready, caro Marchmont,’ cried the signora, who had indeed wakened up in a marvellous manner at Marchmont’s announcement; ‘she can have her dress on in ten minutes. Girls, you know, need no long preparations--no “making up” like their unfortunate elders. Go, Fulvia, you will be ready by the time we have finished coffee. Go, carissima mia.’ ‘I am tired, mamma,’ said the girl, and indeed she looked exceedingly weary. ‘Tired! who ever heard of a young girl being tired, when it is a question of a box at the opera? Why, Nilsson is singing; all Rome will be there. Absurd, my sweetest pet! Signor Marchmont has got the tickets--all we have to do is to enjoy the results.’ ‘Oh, if she doesn’t want to go!’ came the strident voice, in accents of pique. ‘Of course she wants to go. It is the same as with the flowers. So many pleasures and attentions, coming at once after the quiet life we have been leading, bewilder her. Now go, carina,’ she added, bending towards Fulvia with the same unchanging, artificial smile on her face, but with, as Minna saw, a steely flash of resolution in her eyes. She laid her hand for a moment on her daughter’s wrist. It seemed to Minna as if her fingers tightened on it in a fashion not exactly tender. Fulvia rose slowly. There was no smile at all on her lips. She came down the room, also slowly, and paused for a moment behind Signor Giuseppe’s chair, laid her hands on his shoulders, and said in a low voice, between pettishness and coaxing: ‘Beppino, can’t you hinder my having to go to the hateful theatre?’ His eyebrows contracted sharply. Minna felt her heart throb as she watched them. ‘I think you had better do as your mother wishes to-night,’ said he, also in a low voice. ‘What a perfectly miserable story!’ she said to herself, with an aching heart. ‘Beppino, forsooth. I suppose this child does not know what it all means; she is still a _bambina_, in many ways. Still, an Italian girl of sixteen----’ ‘Cattivo!’ said Fulvia, giving him a little blow on the shoulder. ‘You will do nothing that I wish now. I am cross with you.’ She walked out of the room with the majesty of a queen. Minna plunged wildly into a conversation about she knew not what with her left-hand neighbour. She could not speak to Hans Riemann. She had met Fulvia’s eyes as she lifted her head after her colloquy with Signor Giuseppe, and she had seen in them that which made her sadder than before. Coffee was served. Signora Dietrich, hastily swallowing hers, made a flowery apology to the company in general for leaving them, but put it to them whether she was not right to avail herself of Signor Marchmont’s princely generosity, and, with many a nod and beck, many a false and wreathed smile, she made her way from the room, followed by the gentleman of the princely generosity.