Oh! to-morrow night! It is my husband to me.' Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom.
Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, when a bell-note of Vittoria's voice arrested him.
'Stay, Signor Carlo; I shall sing to-morrow night.' The widow heard her through that thick emotion which had just closed her' speech with its symbolical sensuous rapture.

Divining opposition fiercely, like a creature thwarted when athirst for the wells, she gave her a terrible look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of sweetness could make the tones pleasant, 'Yes, you will sing, but you will not sing that song.' 'It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.' 'When it is interdicted ?' 'There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.' 'You will dare to sing in defiance of me ?' 'I dare nothing when I simply do my duty.' Ammiani went up to the window, and leaned there, eyeing the lights leading down to the crowding Piazza.

He wished that he were among the crowd, and might not hear those sharp stinging utterances coming from Laura, and Vittoria's unwavering replies, less frequent, but firmer, and gravely solid.

Laura spent her energy in taunts, but Vittoria spoke only of her resolve, and to the point.

It was, as his military instincts framed the simile, like the venomous crackling of skirmishing rifles before a fortress, that answered slowly with its volume of sound and sweeping shot.