That evening Miss Gray, charming in a soft lavender georgette dress, which her clever fingers had made and remade, wondered why her four young charges were so glum. There was nothing in the world she loved so much as a symphony orchestra. She sat back in her chair, close to the edge of the box, with a happy sigh, and studied her program. Everything that she liked best, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and Wagner—Siegfried's Death. Gyp, eyeing her chaperon's happy anticipation, indulged in a whispered regret.
"Doesn't she look pretty to-night? If that horrible creature only hadn't been——" The setting would have been so perfect for the dénouement. She sprawled back, resignedly, in her chair, smothering a yawn. A flutter of applause marked the coming in of the orchestra. There was the usual scraping of chairs and whining of strings. Then suddenly Miss Gray leaned out over the box-rail, exclaiming incoherently, her hands clasping and unclasping in a wild, helpless way.
An opening crash of the cymbals covered her confusion. The four girls were staring at her, round-eyed. They had not believed Miss Gray capable of such agitation! What ever had happened——
"An old friend," she whispered, her face alternately paling and flushing. "A very dear—old—friend! The—the third—violin——" She leaned weakly against the box-rail. The girls looked down at the orchestra. There—under the leader's arm—sat the third violinist—and a white streak ran from his forehead straight back through his coal black hair!
As though an electric shock flashed through them the four girls straightened and stiffened. A glance, charged with meaning, passed from one to another. Gyp, remembering the moment of confidence between her and Miss Gray, slipped her hand into Miss Gray's and squeezed it encouragingly.
Not one of them heard a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost pushed Miss Gray toward it.
"Of course you're going to see him! Hurry. You look so nice——" Gyp was so excited that she did not know quite what she was saying. "Oh—hurry! You may never see him again."
Then they, precipitously and on tiptoe, followed little Miss Gray. Though it did not happen as each in her romantic soul had planned, it was none the less satisfying! In a chilly, bare anteroom off the stage, at a queer sound behind him resembling in a small way his name, the third violinist turned from the job of putting his violin into its box.
"Milly," he cried, his face flaming red with a pleased surprise.
"George——" Miss Gray held back, twisting her fingers in a helpless flutter. "I—I thought—when you sent—the—flowers—and the verses—that maybe, you—you still cared!"