"My dear fellow," was Stanley's answer, "I have gambled with him. All through one of those periods when he was engaged, ostrich-like, in sticking his head into the sand, I was with him. Besides, I know something of his private affairs. He had sunk all of his own money long ago; for the last year or so the Torch and Wooton have been living on the gullibility of others. It seems strange that this should be possible in this smart American city, but Wooton was not an ordinary bluffer; he was a genius. Owing you hundreds of dollars he could talk to you all day so skilfully on the one especial vanity of your heart that you would feel much more like offering him another hundred than like even so much as mentioning the old debt. I feel sorry for him. He should have a patron, to humor him in all his extravagances; he would be splendid, splendid!"
But Lancaster, whom the news had touched a good deal, declared that it was time he was taking himself off. Belden accompanied him to the door, and spoke to him encouragingly about another position that he thought Dick could easily obtain. Then Lancaster passed out into the night.
[CHAPTER V]
Carriages lined the sidewalk for blocks in every direction. There was a slight sprinkle of rain falling, and the shining rubber coats and hats of the coachmen caught the electric light in fantastic streaks. Horses were stamping, and chafing the bit. From every direction came a stream of humanity, all making for the Auditorium. Carriages were arriving every moment; the bystanders and ticket scalpers caught glimpses of light hose and dainty opera shoes and skirts that were lifted for an instant. Men in black capes were hurrying about busily. The cable cars emptied load after load of well-dressed men and women. All the world and his wife was going to the opera.
Dick Lancaster, as he got out of his hansom, looked appreciatively at the picture that all this hurrying throng made, and shaking some of the rain drops off his coat, entered the opera house. As he looked about him at the richly caparisoned human animals all on pleasure bent, at the nonchalance that the mirrors told him he himself was displaying, it came over him with something of amusement that there had been decided changes in Richard Lancaster since that young person first came to town. Impressionable as wax, the town had already cast its fascinations over him; he was in the charmed circle. He had been put up at one of the best of the clubs; he had been made much of, socially, by the select set that allowed the preferences of Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart to dictate the distinction between the Somebodies and the Nobodies; he had been successful enough, professionally, to enable him to move in the world as befitted his tastes. It is to be confessed that his tastes, now that they had been whetted by the approach of opportunities, were not of the most economical. He was fond of all things that show the intellectual aristocrat; he liked to look well, to dine well, to talk well, and to enjoy good music. He liked the comfort, the remoteness from the mere vagaries of the weather, that this town life afforded. Here was a night such as in the country would be dismal unspeakably; yet nothing but brilliance and enjoyment was evident in his present surroundings.
He threw his shoulders back with something of proud pleasure in his own well-being, as he handed his cape and opera-hat to the caretaker. Yes, life was good! It tasted well, and he was young, and there would yet be many long, delicious draughts of it!
Mrs. Stewart was in her box. Several girls, whose low-cut dresses seemed to be longing for something more worth showing, were seated on the chairs that surrounded the central figure, Mrs. Stewart. In the background of this, as of all other boxes, was a phalanx of white shirt-fronts. It looked like the fore-front of an attacking army; first the flash of bayonets, as they are to be found in woman's eyes, and then the heavier artillery, the stolid force of masculinity. In the wide corridors behind the boxes, in the foyers, and up and down the marble stairways, the stream of people flowed back and forth. Presently the conductor of the orchestra took his seat. There was a hastening toward seats and boxes, and the overture of the "Cavalleria Rusticana" floated out in echoes.
Young Lancaster reached the Stewart box just as the first bars were streaming forth. Mrs. Stewart leaned her head gracefully back over her right shoulder, and smiled up at him. She stretched up a beautifully gloved hand, and whispered a "Glad you came through the rain, after all. Awfully disappointed if you hadn't!" at him. He nodded to the other women, and shook hands with Mr. Stewart and some of the other members of the white-shirted, blank-faced phalanx.
"Ah," whispered Mrs. Stewart with a languid show of interest, and putting her lorgnette up, "there is Calve!"