"You are married already?" asked the Italian quickly, as a momentary pallor spread over her face.
"Yes, Signora."
This "yes," sounded dull and cold, and the half-mocking expression which played for a moment on the singer's lips, as she looked at the man of barely four-and-twenty years, disappeared at this tone.
"People marry very young in Germany, it appears," she remarked, quietly.
"Sometimes."
The young Italian seemed to find the pause which followed these words somewhat painful; she changed rapidly to another topic--
"I fear you have already been subjected to the examination of which I warned you. All the same, the company was charmed with your performance."
"Perhaps!" said the young man, half-contemptuously, "and yet it certainly was not intended for the company."
"Not! and for whom, then?" asked Signora Biancona, directing her glance firmly towards him. And he looked at her; there seemed to be something alike in both pairs of eyes which now met one another--both large, dark, and mysterious. In Almbach's glance, too, shone the same light as in the actress'; here also burned an ardent, passionate soul; also here, in the depths, slumbered the demonlike spark which is so often the heritage of genial natures, and becomes their curse when no protecting hand restrains it, and when it is fanned into flame, then no more brings light, but only destruction.
He came a step nearer and lowered his voice; its great excitement, however, still betrayed itself.