Betty sat motionless in the sudden blaze of light, her eyes idly sweeping the glittering horseshoe which extended at her right, her heart beating wildly. She was conscious only of one pair of eyes upon her and she fought down an almost irresistible impulse to turn and meet them. Someone was staring at her from the box at her left, staring as if mutely compelling her gaze and she flushed darkly beneath the scar upon her cheek.
Whoever they were, it was evident that this man and his companions were well known, for from the fall of the curtain until its rise again, a constant stream of visitors eddied about their box and scraps of gay chatter and soft tinkling laughter came to her ears. One chance phrase, in a vivacious feminine voice made her breath catch in her throat:
"Oh, don't mind Toddie! He is fuming inwardly, although he won't tell why. Anyway, it's a positive comfort to know that there's something on his mind beside his hat. How were the ducks in North Carolina?"
Betty stirred uneasily in her chair. If "Toddie" were the man who had come to deliver the letter into her hands she could well understand the reason for his ill humor. What must he think of her presence yet deliberate evasion of him? Her determination did not falter, however. Come what might, she meant to drain to its dregs this cup of unalloyed happiness which so unexpectedly had been held to her lips.
Just as the lights were lowered, and the first soft strains of Amneris' lamentation swelled from the orchestra, she ventured a swift glance at the box on her left.
A portly, gray-haired dowager was directly beside Betty with two younger women on her left, and all three were glittering with jewels like miniature constellations. Behind them an obese elderly gentleman dropped his lowest chin upon his broad expanse of shirt bosom in well-calculated repose, a younger one bent forward to whisper into the ear of the girl in front of him, and a third, a round-faced man with a downy blond mustache turned squarely and met Betty's eyes, with exasperation glowering in his own.
She permitted her gaze to rest on him impersonally for a moment then slowly shifted it to the stage as the curtain rose.
The scene held her, and the beauty of the music so enthralled her senses that she forgot herself and the strange errand which had brought her there until a chair rasped against the box rail in unmistakable signal. With a start she threw off the spell which had entranced her, and just as the divine notes of Aida's "Vedi? di morte l'angelo—" rose winging through the vast house, she moved silently to the chair at her left and rested her arm upon the barrier.
There was a sound very like a sigh from the next box, and an envelope was thrust almost roughly beneath her fingers.
For a space of interminable minutes she sat as motionless as if carved from stone, save that the hand holding the letter was clenched to her breast, crushing the cluster of white roses which she wore, and feeling like a pulseless lump of ice. The perfume of the flowers, cloyingly sweet, all but suffocated her, and the band of pearls seemed to tighten about her throat.