There was such melancholy in her heart that she cast herself into all the flippancy with abandonment.
The Act was weak in too distinctly revealing the finger of the poetic political squib at a point here and there.

The temptation to do it of an Agostino, who had no other outlet, had been irresistible, and he sat moaning over his artistic depravity, now that it stared him in the face.
Applause scarcely consoled him, and it was with humiliation of mind that he acknowledged his debt to the music and the singers, and how little they owed to him.
Now Camillo is pleased to receive the ardent passion of his wife, and the masking suits his taste, but it is the vice of his character that he cannot act to any degree subordinately in concert; he insists upon positive headship!--( allusion to an Italian weakness for sovereignties; it passed unobserved, and chuckled bitterly over his excess of subtlety).

Camillo cannot leave the scheming to her.

He pursues Michiella to subdue her with blandishments.

Reproaches cease upon her part.