Women were stepping about gingerly in high heels; lights flashed on quivering aigrettes, on the pressed, intense faces of the watchers, and on the gently turning and falling snow, against the dark street. Norma was caught in some man's protecting arm, to push through into the churning crowd in the foyer; she had a glimpse of uniformed ushers and programme boys, of furred shoulders, of bared shoulders, of silk hats, of a sign that said: "Footmen Are Not Allowed in This Lobby."
Then somehow through, criss-crossed currents in the crowd, they reached the mysterious door of the box, and Norma saw for the first time the great, dimly lighted circle of the opera house, the enormous rise of balcony above balcony, the double tiers of boxes, and the rows of seats downstairs, separated by wide aisles, and rapidly filling now with the men and women who were coming down to their places almost on a run.
The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood, and in the instantly ensuing hush the first quivering notes of the opera began.
"Sit down, you web-foot!" Acton Liggett whispered, laughing, and Norma sank stiffly upon her chair, risking, as the curtain had not yet risen, a swift, bewildered smile of apology toward the dim forms that were rustling and settling behind her.
"Oo—oo—ooo!" was all that she could whisper when presently Chris murmured a question in her ear. And when the lights were on again, and the stars taking their calls, he saw that her face was wet, and her lashes were caught together with tears.
"It is wonderful music; the best of Verdi!" he said to Annie; and Annie, agreeing, sent him off with "that baby," to have her dry her eyes. Norma liked his not speaking to her, on her way to the great parlour where women were circling about the long mirrors, but when she rejoined him she was quite herself, laughing, excited, half dancing as he took her back to the box.
She sat down again, her beautiful little head, with its innocent sweep of smooth hair, visible from almost every part of the house, her questions incessant as the blue eyes and the great fan swept to and fro. Once, when she turned suddenly toward him, in the second entr'acte, she saw a look on Chris's face that gave her an odd second of something like fear, but the house darkened again before she could analyze the emotion, and Norma glued her eyes to the footlights.
What she did not see was a man, not quite at ease at his own first grand opera, not quite comfortable in his own first evening dress, lost—and willingly lost, among the hundreds who had come in just to stand far at the back, behind the seats, edging and elbowing each other, changing feet, and resting against any chair-back or column that offered itself, and sitting down, between acts, on the floor.
Wolf was not restless. He was strong enough to stand like an Indian, and tall enough to look easily over the surrounding heads. More than that, "Aïda" did not interest him in itself, and at some of its most brilliant passages he was guilty of slipping away to pace the hallways in solitude, or steal to the foyer for a brief cigarette. But when the house was lighted again, he went back into the auditorium, and then his eyes never left the little dark head of the girl who sat forward in one of the lower tier of boxes, waving her big fan, and talking over her bare shoulder to one or another of the persons beside or behind her.