Rosalind replied, "How do you know?"
"I gather it. Pensive figures watch the clock, and look up and down. They all turn hopefully when they hear you, and scowl at you as you come in sight. I passed once in the evening; I felt myself such a general disappointment that I always walk on the other side now."
The man at the turnstiles told them that the orchestra was playing in the theatre; and as they drew close they heard it, but for some little time they could find no way inside. No charge was made for admission to the theatre in the afternoon, and only the entrance to the balcony was open. They saw nobody to guide them. There were no other footsteps on the pier; there was no sound but the plaintive music that they couldn't reach. They wandered round and round the terrace, trying locked doors.
The tide was out, and the sheen of the smooth wet sand was violet under a paling sky. Little white waves were hurrying, and in the faded distance the star of the lightship gleamed and hid.
Through the window of an unexpected office they spied the girl who sold the stall tickets in the evening. "Oh, yes!" she said, and ran out to show them where to go.
Only two or three figures inhabited the roomy balcony. Below, the body of the house was soulless, shrouded in white wrappers. Faint daylight touched the auditorium wanly, but gas jets yellowed the faces of the orchestra. In the narrow line of glare amid the emptiness, they played.
Rosalind and Conrad sat down in the last row, and spoke in low voices. He knew that the impression of the scene was going to linger with him after she had gone.
In a few minutes she whispered, "Let's go on the terrace again," and they crept to the door.
"We couldn't talk in there," she said.... "Look here! what you were saying to Tattie: I want you to tell me straight, I don't know anything about you—can you afford to do all that?"
"Oh yes," he said; "that's all right."