At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam—a small man who doesn't talk much; and it seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste it, or coffee.
And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her elbows with silk loops that passed over silver balls.
I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had passed through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the least conspicuous chair. Muffled as I was, I trembled at the first glance at the great, brilliantly lighted house, from which rose the stir of a gathering audience and a rustle of low voices.
"Why, you're not nervous, are you?" the General asked. "I've brought you here early on purpose; you'll be comfortably settled before anybody notices."
And she good-naturedly pushed me into a front place. The music was all the while going on, but no one seemed to pay much attention.
"Who'll notice me in this big building?" I asked with a shaky little laugh.
But just at first, as I looked out over the house, I clutched the lace that was still around my throat. It was warm after the chill air without, and my head swam. There was mystery in the swarming figures and the murmur. The breath of the roses that lay over the box rails, the gleaming of bared shoulders, the flash of jewels seemed to belong to some other world—a world where I was native, and from which I had too long been exiled. Surely in some other life I must have had my place among gaily-dressed ladies who smiled and nodded, bending tiara-crowned heads above gently waving fans. I felt kinship with them; I passionately longed to be noticed by them, and feared it even more intensely.
Almost immediately after our arrival the curtain fell upon the first scene. We had missed every word of it! Mrs. Van Dam left me for a few minutes to myself, and as I became more composed, I put back my scarf and looked about a little more boldly. The house was yet far from full, but every moment people were coming in.
The boxes at each side of us were untenanted, but at no great distance I saw Peggy Van Dam, seated beside a large woman—her mother, Mrs. Henry—and chatting busily with a stout, good-natured-looking young man. Even Peggy had not noticed our entrance and, quite reassured, I lifted my opera glass and began studying the audience.
We were near the front of the house in the first tier on the left, and I had in view almost the whole sweep of the great gold and crimson horseshoe. Down in the orchestra some of the women were as gorgeous in satins and brocades as those in the boxes, while others wore street attire. Nearly all the men had donned evening dress, and I thought at first—but soon saw how absurd that was—that I could pick out John by his office suit. I could not repress a little glow of pride, as I looked down upon those rows and rows of heads, to think that somewhere among them, or above them, John was watching, rejoicing with me, fearing for me where for himself he would never fear. He'd lift, if he could, every stone from my path. Mr. Hynes, now, would carry you forward so fast that you'd never see the stones.