"It isn't that, my dear. It's the gown, that one in front of you. Every inch of the lace is hand-made."
Mrs. Clutterbuck was quite enervated by the discovery.
"Oh," said Mabel in quite a relieved way, "was that it? I began to blame myself for bringing you to the stairs."
"Isn't it fun?" said Elsie. "Much funnier looking at these people than it will be looking at royalty. I never saw so many lorgnettes."
A sudden movement made them rise. A group of princesses with bouquets appeared and took their seats on the red chairs.
"Oh," said Jean with a sigh, as they sat down again. "Think of the poor artists now."
She had grown quite pale.
"I don't think I shall ever be able to perform," she said. "My heart simply stops beating on an occasion of this sort."
The crowd parted again, and a singer, radiant in white chiffon with silver embroidery, and wearing a black hat with enormous plumes, ascended the platform. She curtseyed elaborately to the princesses, and casually bowed in the direction of the applause which reached her from other sources. She began to sing, and in that hall of reserved voices, of deferential attitudes, of eager, searching glances and general ceremonious curiosity, her voice rang out a clear, beautiful, alien thing. It danced into the shadows of minds merely occupied with staring, it filled up crevices as though she had appeared in an empty room. One moment every one had been girt with a kind of fashionable melancholy which precluded anything but polite commonplaces. The next minute something living had appeared, a liquid voice sang notes of joy, mockery and despair; it lit on things which cannot be touched upon with the speaking voice, and it brought tears to the eyes of one little princess.
Jean was shrouded in longing. Nothing so intimately delicious had ever come near her. She might as well shut up her music books and say good-bye to Herr Slavska. Elsie sat beside the lady in real lace. She was in the woods with the fresh air blowing over her; buttercups and daisies at her feet.