To his mind it was the vilest treason, the grossest selfishness, to conspire or to wink at the sacrifice of a voice like Vittoria's to such a temporal matter as this, which they called patriotism.

He looked on it as one might look on the Hindoo drama of a Suttee.

He saw in it just that stupid action of a whole body of fanatics combined to precipitate the devotion of a precious thing to extinction.
And worse; for life was common, and women and Hindoo widows were common; but a Vittorian voice was but one in a generation--in a cycle of years.

The religious belief of the connoisseur extended to the devout conception that her voice was a spiritual endowment, the casting of which priceless jewel into the bloody ditch of patriots was far more tragic and lamentable than any disastrous concourse of dedicated lives.
He shook the lobby with his tread, thinking of the great night this might have been but for Vittoria's madness.

The overture was coming to an end.