CHAPTER III
A DUO AT THE OPERA
THE opera at Monte Carlo is housed in the end of the Casino building nearest the Hotel de Paris, so that the Countess Rémond and her two companions had only to cross the street. It was to the private entrance that the baron led the way. Here the prince paused.
“Do you require me any longer?” he asked.
“Perhaps you would better go in and be seen with us for a moment,” said the baron.
The prince nodded curtly, and the three followed a deferential, gold-laced flunkey up the red-carpeted stair, and into a box.
It is a masterpiece of its kind, this opera house, the work of that Charles Garnier who built the Paris opera, and whose style, if too gay and florid for a temple dedicated to the classics, is admirably suited to the frivolous atmosphere of Monte Carlo. Outside it is a medley of columns, mosaics, lyres, masks and minarets; inside, of gilding, garlands, friezes and frescoes. Vigorous young women support the domed ceiling, naked youths perch precariously on the cornices; one is confused and intimidated by the riot of colour and decoration. But gradually one gets used to it, and the auditorium itself is admirable—a single floor of comfortable seats stretching below the boxes down to the stage.
There are three large boxes, the central one, with gilded canopy, being reserved for Monaco’s Prince. It was into one of the others that the baron’s party was shown; and the baron, after assisting the countess to a seat, himself sat down and looked out across the audience toward the stage. The prince refused the chair proffered by the attendant, and stood leaning against the side of the box as though poised for flight.
The play had proceeded to the second act, and Scarpia was explaining his evil designs to Tosca, while her lover was being melodiously tortured off-stage. The baron looked only long enough to see that Della Rizza was singing Tosca and Dinh-Gilly Scarpia, and then, having heard them many times, he turned his attention from the stage to the audience.
This audience, with the reputation of being the most blasé in the world, was lolling in its seats, listening perfunctorily to the music, and almost visibly digesting a too-generous dinner. Not until Scarpia had died, with a last convulsion, and Tosca had placed the candles on either side of his head, and the curtain had come down and the lights gone up, did it stir. Then it rose to its feet as by a common impulse and surged forth into the pillared atrium to walk up and down and get a little gentle exercise and look itself over.
But the baron did not rise. Instead he drew his chair further back into the recesses of the box.