"A box?" Her voice had risen dubiously.
"There's nothing else left that is decent," he had lied to her.
But he saw that she was far from happy at the prospect, although she was too proud to voice any further protests.
Curiously enough, even Phil Edington had demurred.
"A box? What's the big idea? Why don't you get some seats in the orchestra?... Oh, I don't care a rap! Do as you want, but I thought that perhaps...."
At that point he had begun to grow irritated; he decided obstinately that his guests would either go in a box or remain at home.
Well, they had come in a box, and the audience appeared to be ignoring them. He had expected something more brilliant in the way of an assembly, but the house was dressed, on the whole, rather illy for the occasion, as San Francisco audiences quite often are. To begin with, the Valencia Theater was out of the beaten path, and a heavy rain was falling. This had the effect of making the prudent and frugal, who were denied the comfort of either limousines or taxis, decide on street costume instead of evening fripperies. Only the very smartest people could afford to ignore the elements, and even these were obliged to withstand the chill of a draughty playhouse by snuggling close into their opera cloaks and thus concealing the bare throats and flashing jewels that a more comfortable environment might have disclosed. On the whole, he was disappointed. One of his reasons for deciding upon a box was to give Claire the treat of a scintillating audience seen from a perfect vantage-point. But he had forgotten that his native town rarely dazzled the spectators except for grand opera at staggering prices, and even then there were always plenty of recalcitrant males in their business suits to spoil the picture. San Francisco had not yet reached the point where its men consciously and as a whole dressed for the occasion; there was still the sneer of effeminacy directed at those who insisted on taking seriously the matter of suitable raiment.
To-night Claire had made an effort at extreme simplicity. She was in severe black, open slightly at the throat, and a large artificial pink rose added a single note of color. Having no jewels, she wore none, and her hair fell away from her brow in a grace utterly natural and charming. He had always thought of her hair vaguely as dark—to-night, standing just behind her where the light searched out its half-tones, he discovered glinting bits that ran all the way from burnished copper to shining gold. During the first number she sat slightly forward, intent on letting no detail escape. When the curtain fell upon the whimsical Till dangling from a gibbet in the medieval market-place, Stillman leaned forward and said:
"What do you think of it?"
He did not realize how much it meant to have her strike just the proper note, until his heart bounded with satisfaction at her frank and unstudied answer: