| The meeting of true lovers' eyes Seems wrought of chance; and yet Perhaps the same grim law abides Therein as when the dead one lies Low in the grave, and memory chides, And with hot tears love's lids are wet. |
AT THE BEGINNING.
She was in the box; he was far above in the gallery.
He looked down and across and saw her sitting there fair as a flower and robed like a royal courtesan in flame and snow.
Like a red torch flamed the ruby in her hair. Her shoulders were framed in her cloak, white as marble warmed with firelight. Her gloved hands held an opera glass which also glowed with flashing light.
His face grew dark and stern. He looked down at his poor coat and around at the motley gallery which reeked with the smell of tobacco and liquor.
Students were there—poor like himself, but with great music-loving, hungry, ambitious souls. Men and women of refinement and indomitable will sat side by side with drunken loafers who had chanced to stumble up the stairway.