Emilie and Eline sat down in front, Betsy and Georges behind them, while Eline laid down her fan and her pearl-rimmed binocle. Then she slowly commenced to untie her white plush, red satin-lined cloak, and as a cloud of pink and white it glided from her shoulders, and de Woude folded it over the back of her fauteuil. And in the triumph of her beauty it did her good to see how she was stared at and admired.
“What a number of people there are here this evening! we are [[40]]fortunate,” whispered Emilie. “There’s nothing, I think, so wretched as to see an empty house.”
“You are right!” said Betsy. “Look, there are the Eekhofs, Ange and Léonie, with their mamma. They were at the Verstraetens’ too yesterday; next week they are giving a soirée dansante.” And she nodded to the girls.
“The new baritone from Brussels, Théo Fabrice, sings this evening,” said de Woude to Eline. “You know that since the débuts commenced, two have been dismissed; he makes the third.”
“How terribly long those débuts are this winter!” remarked Eline, in an indifferent tone.
“The tenor robusto was all right from the first, but they say Fabrice is very good too. Look, there he comes.”
The chorus of Ben-Saïd’s odalisques was ended, and the Moorish sovereign entered his palace, leading Xaïma by the hand. But Eline paid little attention; she glanced round the theatre, and gave a friendly nod of recognition as her eyes met those of some acquaintance, and she did not cast another glance in the direction of the stage until Ben-Saïd and his slave were seated under the canopy, and the ballet commenced. That attracted her, and her eyes followed the danseuses, as, gliding along on the tips of their toes, they ranged themselves in groups beneath the Moorish arches, and under the uplifted veils and fans of silver fringe, their forms encased in corsages of glossy satin, and all a-glitter with the spangles on their gauze-like frocks.
“A pretty ballet!” said Emilie, yawning behind her fan, and she leaned back cosily in her fauteuil, somewhat under the generous influence of her choice dinner.
Eline nodded her head, and while at the back of her she could hear Betsy and Georges whispering together, she still followed the clever gyrations of the première danseuse, as with graceful movements she hovered beneath the waving fans of the dancers on the tips of her pointed, satin-clad feet, a dazzling aigrette of diamonds in her hair.
With her dreamy, idealistic nature, Eline was passionately fond of the opera, not only because it afforded her the opportunity of being the object of general admiration, not only because of the music, or that she was anxious to hear one or another aria sung by some celebrated prima donna, but also because of the intricate, romantic-coloured plot, the somewhat rudely-painted melodramatic [[41]]effects, full of hatred and love and revenge, the conventionality of which did not trouble her, and in which she did not even look for any truth. There was no need for her to forget for one moment that they were but actors and actresses whom she saw before her, and not knights and noble ladies; that she was seated in a crowded, brilliantly illumined theatre, looking at painted scenes, and listening to the harmony of a visible orchestra, and not living with hero and heroine through some more or less poetic period of the middle ages; but none the less did she enjoy herself, if the actors did not sing too badly, nor play with too much prosy conventionality.