Addie raised her shoulders in a slight shrug.
"When Carolina holds the centre of the stage, it is impossible to carry out one's own ideas of promptness," she said.
"Nasty old cat," whispered Kate to St. Quentin, as he stooped for her glove and handkerchief. "Thanks so much. I don't know how I managed it, but I held on to my fan."
Later in the Lees' box with Melba singing Marguerite, St. Quentin turned to Carolina again. She had swept the house with her glass as soon as the party were seated, and had noted but one old acquaintance whose face seemed to invite study. The girl's name was Rosemary Goddard, and among the discontented faces which thronged the boxes in the horseshoe, hers alone was peaceful. Nay, more. It was radiant. Carolina remembered her face--a cold, aristocratic mouth, disdainful eyes, haughty brows, and a nose which seemed to spurn friend and foe alike. What a transfiguration! How beautiful she had grown!
She was so occupied with the enigma Rosemary presented that St. Quentin was obliged to repeat his question.
"How would you go to work, Carol?"
The girl turned with a sigh. Sometimes it seemed to her that she never would become accustomed to talking at the opera. She almost envied a tall young man, who stood in the first balcony. His evening clothes were of a hopeless cut. His manner was that of a stranger in New York, but in his face, one of the finest she had ever seen, was such a passion for music that she watched him, even while she answered St. Quentin with a grace which hid her unwillingness to talk.
"For what I really would love to do," she said over her white shoulder, with her eyes on the strange young man, "you started me off a little too poor. I might have to borrow a hundred or two from you to begin with! I want to pioneer! I don't mean that I want to go into a wilderness and be a squatter. I want to reclaim some abandoned farm--make over some ugly house--make arid acres yield me money in my purse--money not given to me, left to me, nor found by me, but money that I, myself--Carolina Lee--have earned! Does that amuse you?"
"It interests me," said St. Quentin, quietly.
To be taken seriously was more than the girl expected. She was only telling him a half-truth, because she did not consider him privileged to hear the whole. She continued to test him.