There was a bunch light on the stage, a dirty backdrop of Corinthian pillars and esplanade and no wings, one or two stage hands moving about, and finally a concert grand piano dragged down.
Suddenly Lilly recognized Auchinloss. He was standing just outside the pool of light that flowed over the piano, the unforgetable outline of his shaggy head, joined by two little peninsulas of sideburns to the heavy spade of beard, gray now and not the sooty black she remembered.
The odor of that little room up on Amsterdam Avenue came winding back. Millie du Gass, the supreme soprano of two continents—dead now, of heartbreak, some said; Alma, in her plaid-silk waist and the bookkeeper's curve to her back. That walk across the parlor floor—
"There's Auchinloss now," said Bruce.
She did not reply, but sat with her handkerchief against her mouth and crowded breathing.
There were three auditions.
A high-bosomed young woman with a powerful mezzo soprano that pulled her mouth to a rhomboid sang Santuzza's famous aria from "Cavalleria Rusticana," stopping suddenly to some unseen signal.
"Fine, strong voice of resonant tin," said Visigoth, under his breath.
A throaty young tenor sang "Ride, Ride, Pagliacci," through to the sob, anticipating it with a violent throw of body.
Then Trieste took the piano, running downward an avalanche of quick chords, the sepia-outlined head of Auchinloss gone meanwhile from the stage and down somewhere in the sea of dimness that rolled through the auditorium. Lilly could see his profile etched into the twilight.