“We are five person. How much dollar for five seats of thees box?”
At the little, oldish foreigner in large, newish ready-mades, Fate’s unhandyman looked; then on past the emotionful face to following emotionful faces. The human huddle had disintegrated from a mass of despair into animated units which now moved toward the box office as toward a magnet. Sounds of as many magpies filled the dignified silence—two French women and three men venting recitatives of hope that yet they might hear the Leoncavallo masterpiece. But them, too, the ticket man discouraged, doubtless the more emphatically because of their attire, which was poor, if proud.
“Too much for your party, I’m sure. One-hundred-fifty.”
“But not for my party,” Pape interposed. “I’ll take the whole half dozen.”
The sole so-far thing to impress the assistant treasurer was the roll from which the emergency cash customer began to strip off bank notes. The recitative of hope soughed into a chorus of disappointment as the moneyed young man clutched his half dozen tickets and started for the inner door. Scarcely could he restrain himself from out-loud laughter as he halted and turned to command:
“Get a hurry on, party! At one-and-fifty there’d ought to be better parlez vous places inside.”
Perhaps his inclusive gesture was more comprehensive to them than his words; at any rate, his grin was eloquent.
To his sublet box by way of the grand staircase Peter Stanbury Pape, grand opera patron, strode at the usher’s heels; into it, himself ushered his agitated, magpie covey of true music-lovers. Well to one side he slumped into the chair assigned to him by common consent and found an inconspicuous rest for the more tortured of his feet.
Leaning forward, he undertook to get his bearings; concentrated on the dim and distant stage set, where a lady chiefly dressed in an anklet and feathered hat—presumedly Zaza of the title role from the way she was conducting herself—seemed to be under great stress of emotion set to song. Before he could focus his glasses—one of the pairs for all hands round which he had been persuaded to rent at the foot of the stair-case—the orchestra took control and the red velvet curtains came together between the intimate affairs of the great French actress and those of the many—of the great American audience.
After curtain calls had been duly accorded and recognized and there no longer existed any reason for the half-light cloak of a doubtful song-story, the vast auditorium was set ablaze. And with the illumination uprose a buzz of sound like nothing that Pape ever had heard—more like the swarming of all the bees in Montana within an acre of area than anything he could imagine.