Pauline went. A noted prima donna sang, lured by an immense nightly reward to disclose her vocal splendors before American audiences. But her encompassment, as is so apt to be the case here, was pitiably mediocre. She sang with a presentable contralto, a passable baritone, an effete basso, and an almost despicable tenor. The chorus was anachronistic in costume, sorry in voice, and mournfully undrilled. But the diva was so comprehensively talented that she carried the whole performance. At the same time there were those among her hearers who lamented that her transcendent ability should be burlesqued by so shabby and impotent a surrounding. The engagement of this famous lady was meanwhile one of those sad operatic facts for which the American people have found, during years past, no remedy and no preventive. The fault, of course, lies with themselves. When they are sufficiently numerous as true lovers of music they will refuse their countenance to even a great singer except with creditable artistic and scenic support.
Pauline sat in the Effinghams' spacious proscenium-box, between Mrs. Poughkeepsie and her daughter. Sallie Poughkeepsie was a large girl, with her mother's nose, her mother's serenity, her mother's promise of corpulent matronhood. She had immense prospects; it was reported that she had refused at least twenty eligible matrimonial offers while waiting for the parental nod of approval, which had not yet come.
During the first entr'acte a little throng of admirers entered the box. Some of these Pauline knew; others had appeared, as it were, after her time. One was an Englishman, and she presently became presented to him as the Earl of Glenartney. The title struck her as beautiful, appealing to her sense of the romantic and picturesque; but she wondered that it had done so when she subsequently bent a closer gaze upon the receding forehead, flaccid mouth and lank frame of the Earl himself. He had certainly as much hard prose about his appearance as poetry in his name. Mrs. Poughkeepsie beamed upon him in a sort of sidelong way all the time that he conversed with Sallie. A magnate of bountiful shirt-bosom and haughty profile claimed her full heed, but she failed to bestow it entirely; the presence of this unmarried Scotch peer at her child's elbow was too stirring an incident; her usual equanimity was in a delightful flutter; ambition had already begun its insidious whispers, for the Earl was known to be still a bachelor.
Pauline, who read her aunt so thoroughly, felt the mockery of this maternal deference. She told herself that there was something dreary and horrible about a state of human worldliness which could thus idolize mere rank and place. She knew well enough that so long as Lord Glenartney were not a complete idiot, and so long as his moral character escaped the worst depravity, he would be esteemed a magnificent match for her cousin.
The Earl remained at Sallie's side all through the succeeding act. When the curtain again fell he still remained, while other gentlemen took the places of those now departing. And among these, to her surprise and pleasure, was Ralph Kindelon.
She almost rose as she extended her hand to her friend. A defiant satisfaction had suddenly thrilled her. She pronounced Kindelon's name quite loudly as she presented him to her aunt. Instead of merely bowing to Mrs. Poughkeepsie, Kindelon, with effusive cordiality, put forth his hand. Pauline saw a startled look creep across her aunt's face. The handsome massive-framed Irishman was not clad in evening dress. He towered above all the other gentlemen; he seemed, as indeed he almost was, like a creature of another species. His advent made an instant sensation; a universal stare was levelled upon him by these sleek devotees of fashion, among whom he had the air of pushing his way with a presumptuous geniality. He carried a soft "wide-awake" hat in one hand; his clothes were of some dark gray stuff; his neatly but heavily booted feet made dull sounds upon the floor as he now moved backward in search of a chair. There was no possible doubt regarding his perfect self-possession; he had evidently come to remain and to assert himself.
"Who on earth is he?" Mrs. Poughkeepsie found a chance to swiftly whisper in the ear of her niece. There was an absolutely dramatic touch in the agitation which went with her questioning sentence.
Pauline looked steadily at her aunt as she responded: "A very valued friend of mine."
"But, my dear!" faltered Mrs. Poughkeepsie. The fragmentary little vocative conveyed a volume of patrician dismay.
By this time Kindelon had found a chair. He placed it close to Pauline.