“No, and I won’t do that, neither.” She flung it farther from her and taunted him with the sight of her legs so slim and so shapely in the light blue silk. “You dursn’t run after me, Caleb, or you’ll be taken to Bedlam for a lunatic when the people see you running after me like a draggle-tailed duck. Quack-quack, Caleb! I’m the grand finale to-night, and if you won’t give me champagne I’ll find some one who will, and he’ll have the grandest finale of all.” Unfortunately for Letizia when she turned round to run away she ran into her mother, who caught her by the ear and led her back into the alcove. “_Sei pazza?_” she demanded. “If I am mad, it’s his fault,” protested Letizia angrily. “Let go of my ear, mamma! You’re hurting me.” “_Vuoi far la putanella, eh?_”[3] cried Madame Oriano furiously, squeezing her daughter’s ear even harder. [3] “You want to play the little wanton, eh?” “Eh, _basta_,[4] mamma! Or I’ll be no grand finale to-night for you or nobody else. I only asked for champagne because that old witch jumped up out of the floor and frightened me. If you hadn’t been screaming so loud yourself, you might have heard me scream.” [4] Enough. “_Insolente_,” cried Madame, making coral of her daughter’s ivory cheeks with several vicious slaps. Luckily for Letizia the waiter came back at this moment with a tray on which were glasses and the bottle of champagne. This gave Madame Oriano a real opportunity. Picking up her skirt as if she were going to drop a curtsey, she raised one foot and kicked the tray and its contents up to the oyster-inlaid ceiling of the alcove. She might have been giving the signal for the fireworks to begin, for just as the contents of the tray crashed to the ground the thunder of the maroons reverberated about the pale sapphire of the nine o’clock sky. Madame hurried out into the excited crowd of spectators, clapping her skinny hands and crying, “_Bravo! Bravimissimo!_” at the top of her voice. She believed in the power of the claque and always led the applause of her own creations. Immediately after the maroons the Bengal light flared and turned the upturned faces of the crowd to a lurid rose, the glassy waters of the basin to garnets. Letizia, who had been sobbing with pain and fury while the maroons were exploding, responded with all her being to the excitement of the Bengal light. She forgot her pain, her rage, her disappointment. She quivered like the Mother Shipton, became like the puppet a mere dressed-up spring. She longed for the moment when she should be summoned to ascend the platform and climb the mast to the crow’s-nest on the summit, and most of all for the moment she should hear the sausages round her asbestos tunic fizz and cackle and spit, and when wreathed in flames, balancing herself with a flashing Italian streamer in each hand, she should slide down the long rope into the tumultuous cheers of the public below.