“Really we cannot,” returned Emily. “We shall get shut up in the opera-house all Sunday, if we don’t take care.”
“Which would be indeed dreadfully wicked—a most terrific climax of depravity,” simpered Gus. “Seriously,” he continued, “you must accept my arm, though I am sorry the alternative should be so very disagreeable to you.” These latter words he spoke in such a tone that Emily alone could hear them, for which he obtained a reproachful, tender, and upbraiding glance, with a view to which reward he had probably uttered them.
“Come, Annie, we positively must go,” exclaimed her cousin impatiently.
“Alfred, why don’t you offer Miss Grant your arm?” chimed in Gus, drawing Emily’s within his own. Thus urged, poor Annie, sorely against her will, accepted Alfred’s trembling arm and quitted the box; Emily and Augustus Travers following. As they descended the stairs a slight confusion occurred: an Irish gentleman had lost his hat, and wanted to return to look for it, a measure against which a stout old lady, to whom he was acting as escort, vehemently protested, while an obsequious box-keeper was vainly endeavouring to understand the locality in which the embarrassed Hibernian imagined he had left the missing article. While Annie and her juvenile protector were manoeuvring to get past this group, Augustus Travers paused, saying in a low tone to his companion, “Let them precede us; I must speak two words to you in private, and if I lose this opportunity I may never have another. Emily, if you value my peace of mind, I entreat you do not refuse.”
A large party, composed chiefly of young men, was descending at the moment, so that Emily’s reply was inaudible, but when, having got in some degree clear of the confusion, Annie looked back for her chaperone, Travers and the Countess were nowhere to be seen. Horrified at this discovery, Annie stopped abruptly, exclaiming, “Oh, we have missed Mr. Travers and my cousin! We had better turn back.”
The boy glanced quickly round, and as he perceived the truth of her assertion a meaning smile passed across his features. All traces of it had, however, vanished ere he replied, “They must have turned down the other staircase, but it will bring them out at the same place as this would have done; we shall meet them at the bottom.” Then, as his companion still hesitated, he continued, “I can assure you it is so; we should only lose them if we were to return.”
Half convinced by this argument, and completely frightened by the party of young men, who, talking and laughing, were rapidly following them, Annie suffered herself to be hurried on by her companion till she reached the foot of the staircase; here she paused and looked anxiously around for her cousin and Travers—they were nowhere to be seen. Annoyed, distressed, and frightened, she turned to her companion, exclaiming, “They are not here, you see. What are we to do?”
“Wait, I suppose,” returned the boy, who seemed puzzled and vexed. “This is a nice trick of Master Gus’s,” he continued in a half soliloquy; “he ought at least to have given me a hint what to do.”
Before Annie could inquire what he imagined his brother’s intentions might be, a fresh incident diverted, and, from its disagreeable nature, soon wholly engrossed her attention. The crush-room, as it is called, where she was now standing, was occupied almost entirely by men, who, broken up into parties of four or five, were pacing up and down, waiting for their friends to join them, or standing in groups, canvassing the various merits and demerits of the different performers. To one or two of these coteries Annie soon became an object of especial notice.
“Do you see that girl?” whispered a pert youth with light curls and a turned-down collar. “Isn’t she a regular stunner, eh?”