"Why do people make a noise, and not be satisfied to feel?" she said angrily to Braintop, as a great clapping of hands followed a divine aria. Her ideas on this point would have been different in the room. By degrees a tender delirium took hold of her sense; and then a subtle emotion--which was partly prompted by dim rivalry with the voice that seemed to be speaking so richly to the man she loved--set her bosom rising and falling. She translated it to herself thus: "What a joy it will be to him to hear me now!" And in a pause she sang clear out-- "Prima d'Italia amica;" and hung on the last note, to be sure that she would be heard by him. Braintop saw the cigarette dash into sparks on the grass. At the same moment a snarl of critical vituperation told Emilia that she had offended taste and her father. He shouted her name, and, striding up to her, stumbled over Braintop, whom he caught with one hand, while the other fell firmly on Emilia. "'Amica--amica-a-a,'" he burlesqued her stress of the luckless note- lowing it at her, and telling her in triumphant Italian that she was found at last. Braintop, after a short struggle, and an effort at speech, which was loosely shaken in his mouth, heard that he stood a prisoner. "Eh! you have not lost your cheeks," insulted his better acquaintance with English slang. Alternately in this queer tongue and in Italian the pair of victims were addressed. Emilia knew her father's temper. He had a habit of dallying with an evil passion till it boiled over and possessed him. Believing Braintop to be in danger of harm, she beckoned to some of the faces crowding the windows; but the movement was not seen, as none of the circumstances were at all understood. Wilfrid, however, knew well who had sung those three bars, concerning which the 'Prima donna' questioned Mr. Pericles, and would not be put off by hearing that it was a startled jackdaw, or an owl, and an ole nightingale. The Greek rubbed his hands. "Now to recommence," he said; "and we shall not notice a jackdaw again." His eye went sideways watchfully at Wilfrid. "You like zat piece of opera?" "Immensely," said Wilfrid, half bowing to the Signora--to whom, as to Majesty, Mr. Pericles introduced him, and fixed him. "Now! To seats!" Mr. Pericles' mandates was being obeyed, when a cry of "Wilfrid!" from Emilia below, raised a flutter. Mr. Pole had been dozing in his chair. He rose at the cry, looking hard, with a mechanical jerk of the neck, at two or three successive faces, and calling, "Somebody--somebody" to take his outstretched hand trembling in a paroxysm of nervous terror. Hearing his son's name again, but more faintly, he raised his voice for Martha. "Don't let that girl come near me! I--I can't get on with foreign girls!" His eyes went among the curious faces surrounding him. "Wilfrid!" he shouted. To the second summons, "Sir" was replied, in the silence. Neither saw the other as they spoke.