The Bacillus of Beauty Part 21

Tuesday morning, Jan. 14.

I am writing before breakfast. They told me to lie quietly in bed this morning, but I'm not tired, not excited. Nothing more happened than I might have expected. I couldn't have supposed that in my presence people would be stocks and stones!

But oh, it was beautiful, terrible! How can I write it? If I could only flash last night--every glorious minute of it--upon paper!

And I might have lost it--they didn't want to let me go! There was a full family council beforehand. John had taken quietly enough the cancelling of our half engagement for the evening, but he had strong objections to my going to the Opera.

"If you prefer that--" he said; "but do you think it wise to appear in such a public place with strangers?"

"But why not?"

I was impatient at so much discussion and discretion. My mind was made up.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't, I suppose." John drew a great sigh.

"But I shall feel easier if--I think I'll go too."

"We'll all go," cried Aunt Frank--it was so funny to have them sit there debating in that way the problem of Her--"we'll enjoy it of all things-- the Judge and I, and especially Ethel."

And so, when the great night came, Milly and I left the others in the midst of their preparations, and went off to dine with Mrs. Van Dam; we were to go with her afterwards to see Mascagni's "Christofero Colombo."

It seems impossible now, but I was excited even about the dinner. I thought it the beginning of recognition--and it was!--to be seized upon by this splendid, masterful young General.

She lives not far from us--on Sixty-seventh Street near Fifth Avenue, while we are on Seventy-second Street near Madison. The wall of her house near the ground looks like that of a fortress; there are no high steps in front, but Milly and I were shown into a hall, oak finished and English, right on the street level; and then into a room off the hall that was English, too--oak and red leather, with branching horns above the mantel and on the floor a big fur rug; and, presently, into a little brocade- lined elevator that took us to Mrs. Van Dam's sitting-room on the third floor.

"You ought to see the whole house," Milly whispered, as we were slowly ascending.

I had eyes just then for nothing but the General herself, who met us, a figure that abashed me, swishing a gleaming evening dress, her neck and hair a-glitter with jewels, more dominant and possessive and---yes, even more interested in me than when I had first seen her.

When we went down to dinner, I did see the house; for at a word from Milly, partly in good nature and partly in pride, Mrs. Van Dam led the way through stately rooms that kept me alternating between confusion and delight, until she paused in a gilded salon, with stuccoed ceiling and softest of soft rose hangings, where I scarcely dared set foot upon the shining floor.

Less in jest than wonder, I asked if Marie Antoinette didn't walk there o'

nights.

"It's _Diane_, isn't it, who walks here this night?" she said, linking her arm in mine and leading me to a tall mirror. Then she changed colour a little, took her arm away hastily and walked from the great gla.s.s. Kind and friendly as she was, she couldn't quite like to see her own image reflected there--beside mine!

"_Diane_ and the Queen of Sheba!" exclaimed Milly, for beside our simple frocks the General was indeed magnificent.

Her brow cleared at this, and she laughed with satisfaction. When I blurted out something about having once run off to a shop parlour, before I came to Aunt, for a peep at a full-length gla.s.s, she laughed again at the confession and called me "a b.u.t.tercup, a perfect _Diane_."

At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam--a small man who doesn't talk much; and it seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste it, or coffee.

And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her elbows with silk loops that pa.s.sed over silver b.a.l.l.s.

I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had pa.s.sed through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the least conspicuous chair. m.u.f.fled as I was, I trembled at the first glance at the great, brilliantly lighted house, from which rose the stir of a gathering audience and a rustle of low voices.

"Why, you're not nervous, are you?" the General asked. "I've brought you here early on purpose; you'll be comfortably settled before anybody notices."

And she good-naturedly pushed me into a front place. The music was all the while going on, but no one seemed to pay much attention.

"Who'll notice me in this big building?" I asked with a shaky little laugh.

But just at first, as I looked out over the house, I clutched the lace that was still around my throat. It was warm after the chill air without, and my head swam. There was mystery in the swarming figures and the murmur. The breath of the roses that lay over the box rails, the gleaming of bared shoulders, the flash of jewels seemed to belong to some other world--a world where I was native, and from which I had too long been exiled. Surely in some other life I must have had my place among gaily- dressed ladies who smiled and nodded, bending tiara-crowned heads above gently waving fans. I felt kinship with them; I pa.s.sionately longed to be noticed by them, and feared it even more intensely.

Almost immediately after our arrival the curtain fell upon the first scene. We had missed every word of it! Mrs. Van Dam left me for a few minutes to myself, and as I became more composed, I put back my scarf and looked about a little more boldly. The house was yet far from full, but every moment people were coming in.

The boxes at each side of us were untenanted, but at no great distance I saw Peggy Van Dam, seated beside a large woman--her mother, Mrs. Henry-- and chatting busily with a stout, good-natured-looking young man. Even Peggy had not noticed our entrance and, quite rea.s.sured, I lifted my opera gla.s.s and began studying the audience.

We were near the front of the house in the first tier on the left, and I had in view almost the whole sweep of the great gold and crimson horseshoe. Down in the orchestra some of the women were as gorgeous in satins and brocades as those in the boxes, while others wore street attire. Nearly all the men had donned evening dress, and I thought at first--but soon saw how absurd that was--that I could pick out John by his office suit. I could not repress a little glow of pride, as I looked down upon those rows and rows of heads, to think that somewhere among them, or above them, John was watching, rejoicing with me, fearing for me where for himself he would never fear. He'd lift, if he could, every stone from my path. Mr. Hynes, now, would carry you forward so fast that you'd never see the stones.

I had no thought that Mr. Hynes was in the house, but, amusing myself with the idea, I lifted my gla.s.s--dear little pearl trinket with which the General had provided me--and looked for him, wondering how often a poor young lawyer attends the Opera. Of course I couldn't see anybody I knew, nor could I read my libretto, for the words danced before my eyes; and Mrs. Van Dam, smiling at my interest, began chattering about the people around us, speaking as if I would soon be as familiar with the brilliant world of fashion and society as herself.

"I wonder," she said in her energetic way, "what it feels like to be at one's first opera."

Excitement was flashing from my eyes and burning on my cheeks as I answered:--

"It's--it's--oh, I can't tell you! But in the West," I added hastily, "we had oratorio."

"What a b.u.t.tercup you are!" she said again.

Soon the curtain rose upon the second act--or scene. Whichever it was, that was all that I was fated to see or hear of the Opera. And for the little while I could consider it, I must say I was disappointed. The scenery was superb, but the voices--

"You've spoiled us, Nelly," Milly whispered.

"Colombo's not bad."

I squeezed her hand ecstatically.

I find that I don't criticise men so shrewdly; but oh, the thin, shrill pipe of Isabella, compared with what a woman's voice may be! Yet I admired her skill, and did not wonder that the house applauded.

The second scene was just closing, and I was lost in dreams of the fine things that I shall do for art and music when I'm a great society leader, when the box door opened, and there entered an elderly couple, much alike--tall, thin, rather stately and withered. I knew that they must be Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam, the General's mother-in-law, and her husband.

Impulsively I sprang up to allow them to come to the front places.

And then--the catastrophe!

I was conscious at first only of an instant's confusion, of a hurried introduction in undertones. Then I found myself again sitting, my arm tingling to the clutch of Milly's fingers. In her pale, pretty face her light eyes glowed with a fright that was not all painful.

The blood seemed to flow back to my heart as I realised what I had done.

The sudden stir in our box had called attention, and I had been standing in the glare of electric lights overhead and at my feet, my white dress outlined against the blood-red curtains.

"Take this fan," Milly whispered from behind me. "Will you have my seat?"

Shame dyed my face. After such a heedless act I couldn't look at the General. I knew that, in his surprise at my appearance, Mr. Marmaduke Van Dam had fumbled noisily with his chair, and that Mrs. Marmaduke had dropped her shoulder wrap--she was in evening dress; how can elderly women do it?--I knew that in spite of their rigid politeness they found it hard to keep their eyes from me. I hoped the General had been too busy to appreciate my folly, and I drew a quivering breath of relief that it had had no more serious consequences.

Yet I was queerly dissatisfied. The Metropolitan Opera House is a big building, and the part of the audience to which I could have been conspicuous was small. Yet some people must have seen; had they taken no notice?

For some s.p.a.ce--minutes or seconds--it seemed so.

Then a confused murmur, a shifting, restless movement, began near us in the orchestra. A good many people down there, as well as in the boxes at each side, had noticed me earlier. Now they began whispering to their neighbours. Heads were turned our way; people were asking, answering, almost pointing. I could see the knowledge of me spread from seat to seat, from row to row, as ripples spread from a stone thrown into still water.