"She's very popular, in the gay set. A beauty! At the Casino we call her 'Little Goldie'."
His whole expression suddenly changed. His eyes began to gleam, with joyful gluttony. The congested redness of his cheeks grew deeper, and he turned round, stroking his beard and straightening up his top-hat with the vanity of a fool who thinks people are admiring him.
The long, sharp trilling of electric bells announced that the second act was about to begin. Everybody began crowding back into the theater; and now, in the solitude of the foyer, the bust of Gayarre seemed higher. Don Manuel exclaimed:
"Come along with me. I'll introduce you to Alicia."
Don Manuel noticed the student's dismayed look, and added:
"That's all right about your not having a dress-suit on. You can stay in the rear of the box."
He started off with a firm step, trying to assume the ease and grace of youth. Enrique followed him without a word. He felt both happy and afraid.
They reached the outer box, that Don Manuel judged good enough for the young fellow. The deputy murmured:
"This is all right, isn't it? I'll see you later. You can see everything here."
Enrique made no answer. The play was already going on, and in the religious stillness of the theater the chorus of the piece was rising in triumphal harmony. It was one of those pleasant Italian operas, freighted for all of us with memories of youth. Darlés ventured to raise one of the heavy curtains just a little, that shut the outer box off from the inner one. A young woman was sitting there, with her back to him and her elbows on the railing of the box. She was all in white. He could see the tempting outlines of her firm hips, beneath the childish insufficiency of her girdle. Her shoulders were plump and of flawless perfection. On the snow of her bare neck her blonde hair, tinged with red, shadowed tawny reflections. Two splendid emeralds trembled, green as drops of absinthe, in the rosy lobes of her small, fine ears.