“I mistrusted Catherine, but that Helen should come to this passes me.”
Still, as she became more accustomed to it, and glanced at other full-dressed ladies, the first shock passed away, and she could calmly contemplate Katy’s dress, wondering what it cost, and then letting her eyes pass on to Helen, to whom Mark Ray seemed so lover-like that Aunt Betsy remembered her impressions when he stopped at Silverton, her heart swelling with pride as she thought of both the girls making out so well.
“Who is that young man talking to Helen?” Mattie asked, between the acts, and when told it “was Mr. Ray, Wilford’s partner,” she drew her breath eagerly, and turned again to watch him, envying the young girl who did not seem as much gratified with the attentions as Mattie fancied she should be were she in Helen’s place.
How could she, with Juno Cameron just opposite, watching her jealously, while Madam Cameron fanned herself indignantly, refusing to look upon what she so greatly disapproved.
But Mark continued his attentions until Helen wished herself away, and though a good deal surprised, was not sorry when Wilford abruptly declared the opera a bore, and suggested going home.
They would order an ice, he said, and have a much pleasanter time in their own private parlor.
“Please not go; I like the play to-night,” Katy said; but on Wilford’s face there was that look which never consulted Katy’s wishes, and so the two ladies tied on their cloaks, and just as the curtain rose in the last act, left their box, while Aunt Betsy looked wistfully after them, but did not suspect she was the cause of their exit, and of Wilford’s perturbation.
Running his eyes over the house below, they had fallen upon the trio, Aunt Betsy, Mattie, and Tom, the first of whom was at that moment partly standing, while she adjusted her heavy shawl, which the heat of the building had compelled her to unfasten.
There was a start, a rush of blood to the head and face, and then he reflected how impossible it was that she should be there, in New York, and at the opera, too.
The shawl arranged, Aunt Betsy took her seat and turned her face fully toward him, while Wilford seized Katy’s glass and leveled it at her. He was not mistaken. It was Aunt Betsy Barlow, and Wilford felt the perspiration oozing out beneath his hair and about his lips, as he remembered the letter he had burned, wishing now that he had answered it, and so, perhaps, have kept her from his door. For she was coming there, nay, possibly had come, since his departure from home, and learning his whereabouts had followed on to the Academy of Music, leaving her baggage where he should stumble over it on entering the hall.