Mrs. Kildair murmured an involuntary tribute while the Duke de Taleza-Corti, with the over-frank admiration which the Latin permits, said point blank:
"If I am to sit behind you, Madame, you must bandage my eyes."
Mrs. Fontaine had chosen the one color which, above all others, seemed to have been created to frame her dark imperious beauty—a warm purple, the tone of autumn itself, which gave to her shoulders and throat the softness of ivory. About her neck was a double string of pearls which were worth ten times the receipts of the house.
"Let's go in," she said, glancing at Gunther with a hope that she might find his eyes a little troubled. She signed to him to take the seat behind hers, placing Beecher back of Mrs. Kildair, and while the rest of her party immediately swept the house with their opera-glasses, she remained quiet, conscious of the sudden focus, unwilling to show herself curious of other women.
"Look," said Mrs. Kildair to Beecher in a low aside; "Mrs. Bloodgood is in her box. What daring!" she added after a moment's examination. "She has dressed herself in black."
Beecher, following her directions, beheld Mrs. Bloodgood, without a single jewel or a relieving touch of color, sitting proudly, looking fixedly at the stage, disdainful of the stir and gossip which her dramatic appearance occasioned. Behind in the crowded box Mr. Bloodgood was standing, smiling and contented, showing himself with a malicious enjoyment.
"How can she do it?" he said.
"After the first act," said Mrs. Kildair, with a sudden impulse of generosity, "go and see her. Take Mr. Gunther. It will give her strength."
"It is decidedly brilliant," said Lady Mowbray. "The parterre is much more effective than Covent Garden."
"There should be a guide to tell us all the histories of these boxes," said Taleza-Corti, with his keen perception of values. "The opera is the record of society. The history of America for the next twenty years will be written here by those who descend from the galleries into the orchestra, and those who force their way from the orchestra into the boxes. I like to think of your millionaires who might have begun up there under the roof. Fonda, our great novelist, says that the opera is the city reduced to the terms of the village. It always impresses me. Magnificent!"