CHAPTER XVIII.
It was a gala night at the opera. The grand old house, so perfect in acoustic properties, so comfortably old-fashioned in design, so quaintly foreign in all its appointments, was filled with an audience composed of the music-loving people of New Orleans, and a sprinkling of Northern visitors still lingering amid the balmy odors of the magnolia and the orange-blossoms. Spring had come,—summer was coming. The sun was already high and warm enough to warrant the appearance of parasols by day; while, after it sank to rest, the ray-warmed breezes were welcomed through open door and casement; and in hundreds of slender hands the fan, swung and flirted with the indolent grace our Southern women have so readily learned from their Castilian sisterhood across the sea, stirred the perfumed air, and rustled soft accompaniment to the witchery of the music.
Entering that old French opera-house on Bourbon Street, one steps on foreign soil. America is left behind. French is the language of every sign, of the libretto, even of the programme. French only is or was then spoken by the employés of the house. French the orchestra, the chorus, the language of the play. French, everything but the music. The ornamentation of the house, the arrangement of the boxes, the very division of the audience was the design of foreign hands, and here, more readily than anywhere in our land, could one imagine oneself abroad.
These were days of triumph for the stockholders of the old company. The somewhat over-gilded and too ornate decorations might have lost much of their freshness, the upholstery had grown worn and faded; but the orchestra and the company were admirable. Aiming at perfection and completeness in all details, the managers had kept up the old system of putting everything thoroughly upon the stage. Costumes and properties, though old, were accurate and appropriate; the chorus was full, admirably schooled and disciplined; and the orchestra, in the days when Calabresi's bâton called it into life, had no superior in the country. Instead of lavishing fortunes on some one marvellous prima donna and concomitant tenor, the aim of the management had been to secure excellent voices, good actors, conscientious artists, and so be sure of rendering an opera in its entirety,—every part well and suitably filled, instead of turning the grand creations of the great composers into mere concert recitations. One heard the opera in New Orleans as he heard it nowhere else in the country, and there, and there only of all its places of public amusement, could one see in full force the culture and the refinement of the Crescent City.
It was a "full dress" night. The parquet was filled with men in the conventional black swallow-tail. The dress and second circles of open boxes, the loges behind them, were brilliant with the toilets of beautifully-dressed women; and in one of these latter enclosures were seated Miss Summers and Kitty, behind whom could be seen Vinton, Amory, and Harrod.
Leaving my seat in the parquet, I strolled up to their box immediately after the curtain fell upon the first act of "The Huguenots." Some forty-eight hours had passed since my meeting with Mars, and that vivid curiosity of mine was all aflame as to the later developments. Both ladies turned and gave me cordial welcome as I entered. Vinton made room for me behind Miss Summers' chair, and Harrod strolled out to see some friends.
Though both officers were in civilian evening dress, the story of Pauline's engagement was known among the few acquaintances she had in society, and her escort, a stranger to the city, was doubtless assumed to be the Yankee major. It was too soon after the war for such an alliance to be looked on with favor by those who had recently been in bitter hostility to the army blue, and the few glances or nods of recognition that passed between Miss Summers and a party of ladies in an adjoining box were constrained—even cold. To my proud-spirited friend this was a matter of little consequence. If anything, it served only the more deeply and firmly to attach her to the gallant gentleman, still pale and languid from his recent illness, who so devotedly hovered about her the entire evening. Her sweet, womanly face was full of the deepest tenderness as she leaned back to speak to him from time to time, and soon, with woman's quick intuition, observing that I was anxious to watch Kitty and Mars, she delightedly resigned herself to my abstraction and gave her undivided attention to Vinton.
Never in my brief acquaintance with her had Kitty Carrington looked so bewitchingly pretty. Never were her eyes so deep, dark, lustrous; never—I could plainly see—so dangerous. Never was her color so brilliant, never were her lips so red, her teeth so flashingly white; and never yet had I seen her when all her fascinations were so mercilessly levelled at a victim's heart, even while she herself was tormenting him to the extent of every feminine ingenuity. The situation was plain at a single glance.
Her greeting to me had been coquettishly cordial, and for a moment she looked as though she expected me to accept Mr. Amory's proffered chair at her back. But Mars had risen with so rueful a look in his eyes—something so appealing and wistful in his bearing—that I had the decency to decline; and with vast relief of manner he slid back into his seat, and the torment went on.
In low, eager tones he was murmuring to her over the back of her chair. She—with head half turned, so that one little ear, pink and shell-like, was temptingly near his lips—was listening with an air of saucy triumph to his pleadings,—whatever they were,—her long lashes sweeping down over her flushed cheeks, and her eyes, only at intervals, shooting sidelong glances at him. What he was saying I could not hear, but never saw I man so plunged in the depths of fascination. His eyes never left their adoring gaze upon her face, yet they were full of trouble, full of pleading that might have moved a heart of stone. But Kitty was merciless. At last there came a bubble of soft, silvery laughter and the mischievous inquiry,—