“What does it all mean?” I whispered. “This isn’t a play, is it? I don’t remember one like it.”
“A play? No; it’s a comic opera,” he answered.
I turned away and watched the performance again. I suppose I looked a little disappointed; but by degrees my disappointment died away. It was all so fresh to me.
Towards the close of the first act, in connection with one of the incidents, several fresh characters—amongst them the girl who was taking the principal part—appeared on the stage. There was a little round of applause and I was on the point of turning to make some remark to Mr. Marx, when I heard a sharp, half-suppressed exclamation escape from his lips and felt his hot breath upon my cheek.
I looked at him in surprise. He had risen from his chair and was standing close to my elbow, leaning over me, with eyes fixed upon the centre of the stage and an incredulous look on his pale face. Instinctively I followed the direction of his rapt gaze. It seemed to me to be bent upon the girl who had last appeared, and who, with the skirts of her dark-green riding-habit gathered up in her hand, was preparing to sing.
He recovered from his surprise, or whatever emotion it was, very quickly, and broke into a short laugh. But I noticed that he pushed his chair farther back into the box and drew the curtains a little more forward.
“Is anything the matter, Mr. Marx?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and frowned a little.
“Nothing at all. I fancied that I recognised a face upon the stage, but I was mistaken. Good-looking girl, isn’t she—the one singing, I mean?”
I thought that good-looking was a very feeble mode of expression, and I said so emphatically. In fact, I thought her the most beautiful and most graceful creature I had ever seen; and, as the evening wore on, I found myself applauding her songs so vigorously that she glanced, smiling, into our box, and Mr. Marx, who was still sitting behind the curtain, looked at me with an amused twitching of the lips.