Unfortunately Ethel turned and saw the tears in her cousin's eyes.
"Mercy! what is the matter?" she asked.
"Jack has been telling me a very pathetic story," said Phyllis, with a pity in her eyes.
"Yes; something that happened to-night," said I, staring at the programme, but seeing nothing, nothing.
"Well," said Ethel, "this is not the place for them," turning her eyes to the stage again.
The concluding acts of the opera were a jangle of chords and discords, and the hum of voices was like the murmur of a far-off sea. My eyes remained fixed upon the stage. It was like looking through a broken kaleidoscope. I wanted to be alone, alone with my pipe. I was glad when we at last entered the carriage. Mrs. Wentworth immediately began to extol the singers, and Phyllis, with that tact which is given only to kind-hearted women, answered most of the indirect questions put to me. She was giving me time to recover. The direct questions I could not avoid. Occasionally I looked out of the window. It had begun to rain again. It was very dreary.
"And what a finale, Mr. Winthrop!" cried Mrs. Wentworth,
"Yes, indeed," I replied. To have loved and lost, and such a woman, was my thought.
"The new tenor is an improvement. Do you not think so?"
"Yes, indeed." No more to touch her hand, to hear her voice, to wait upon her wishes.