Then he lighted a cigar and strolled off leisurely, while the carriage started.
When they entered the opera-house the curtain had risen, and the tenor was singing his farewell to the swan.
As Father Algarcife seated himself in the shadow of the box and looked over Mrs. Ryder's superb shoulders at the stage and the glittering foot-lights, he felt a quick impulse to rush away from it all. He hated the noise and the heat and the glare. The heavy atmosphere seemed oppressive and unnatural, and the women, sparkling brilliantly in the tiers of boxes, looked like beautiful exotics, fragrant with the perishable bloom of a hot-house. It was with a sensation of relief that he recalled the dull mission in the slums, where he had spent the morning.
On the stage, Elsa had cast herself into the arms of Lohengrin, and the voice of love dominant was translated into song. The music filled the house with a throbbing ecstasy—an ecstasy that had captured in its notes the joys of all the senses—the light to the eye of a spring morning, the perfume to the nostrils of fresh meadows, the warmth to the touch of falling sunshine. It was the voice of love ethereal—of love triumphant over flesh, of love holding to its breast the phantom of its dreams. It was the old, ever-young voice of the human heart panting for the possession of its vision—the vision realized in the land of legends.
The curtain was rung down, and in a moment Nevins came in and they fell to talking. They spoke of the tenor, of the fact that the prima donna's voice had strengthened, and of Madame Cambria, the contralto, who was a little hoarse. Then they spoke of the people in the boxes and of the absence of several whose names they mentioned.
Father Algarcife was silent, and he only aroused himself to attention when Miss Darcy, lowering her opera-glass, turned to Nevins inquiringly.
"Do tell me if that is Mrs. Gore across from us—the one in green and violets?"
Nevins replied constrainedly. "Yes," he said; "I think so. The other is Miss Ramsey, I believe—a friend who lives with her."
Miss Darcy smiled.
"Why, I thought she lived alone," she returned; "but I have heard so many odd things about her that I may be mistaken in this one. She is evidently the kind of person that nobody possesses any positive information about."