Between the acts his roving glance found a sudden destination and his elation went into abrupt decline, for seated in one of the boxes, her glass surveying the house in all sorts of disconcerting directions, sat the beautiful widow.
Instinctively Dennis crouched into his seat.
Fortunately he was able by thus collapsing within himself, to escape the radius of her vision, which was interrupted by the railing extending around the balcony.
It would never do to be discovered in his present situation. The elevation was degrading, and Dennis understood the unhappy paradox.
It emphasized the social distinctions too much, and caused the distance from where he sat to the placid beauty below to appear immeasurable.
But this was not the least of his perturbations.
Near the widow a gentleman sat, solicitous, engaging, persistent.
A certain air of distinction rendered doubly obnoxious the assumption of proprietorship which Dennis believed he remarked, and while the young man was able to comfort himself with the discovery that his bewitching companion devoted more attention to the stage and the house than to her escort, still, as Dennis contemplated the faultless attire of the gentleman in the box and contrasted it with his own modest apparel, he felt unaccountably depressed.
All this was revealed by the furtive glances which the young Irishman ventured over the gallery rail.
A strange foreboding overwhelmed him.