"And, Peter, I forgot, you have a father and a mother and the relations for me to meet."
"Not a one. I've got an uncle in Salt Lake City. That's a long way off if you don't know. But how about you?"
"Maybe, who can tell. They are no good. I do not care. Perhaps they are dead. Peter, you are all I have in the world. That is why you must buy me the grand piano."
They went straight from the City Hall to the theatre and Peter left her. He was not to see her again until after the performance. Of course he went to the show and sat in the second row. But Maria did not see him when she came on to do the first of her new numbers. Or at any rate she made no sign of recognition. She kept her eyes intently on the conductor's baton. And then she began to sing. Even Peter had an inkling of the fact that here was a lovely voice. If he had not been married to Maria Algarez at nine o'clock that morning he would still have been caught up in the excitement of the theatre. Almost everybody stopped coughing. They honestly cheered and they kept it up. Nine times Maria sang the chorus and five times more she came out to bow. Her fourth song was the last number in the play with the exception of the parade of all the nations and nobody paid any attention to that. They just kept on applauding and shouting. Peter argued with the stage door man.
"I have to see Maria Algarez," he said. "I have to, I tell you. I'm her husband."
"Write your name down on a piece of paper, and I'll take it up and see what she says."
In three or four minutes he returned. "Miss Algarez says you're to come up. It's number twelve. Two flights up at the head of the stairs."
Peter knocked.
"Come in," said Maria. She had thrown the blue and gold costume in a corner, and slipped on a kimono.
"It was marvelous," said Peter; "nobody's ever heard anything like it in a theatre. They're still cheering and applauding for you."