"I was thinking," said Stainton, "of something in the past, something that I didn't get, and something that was not a business matter." He spoke slowly.
She understood.
"I'm sorry," she said, softly.
"No, no," he smiled. "In point of fact, whenever I failed in prospecting I did try to think that money would not have made me happy. But you may be right, for I always started prospecting again."
"And now?"
"Oh, now," said Stainton, with a concluding smile, "I am trying hard to resist the manifold temptations of good fortune."
As he spoke, the curtain was falling on the tragic termination of Madama Butterfly. The Newberrys and their guests rose as the curtain fell, and Stainton held her cloak for Muriel. Newberry was gasping his way into his own coat, and Holt was holding for Mrs. Newberry a gorgeous Japanese kimono absurdly reminiscent of the opera to which they had not listened; but Muriel's cloak was a simple and beautiful garment in Stainton's eyes, a grey garment lined with satin of the colour of old-fashioned roses. As she got into it—"Oh, it's quite easy," she said—his awkward hand was brushed by her cheek, and he bent his head, certain of being unobserved in that hurry to depart wherewith the average American opera-audience expresses its opinion of the average operatic performance, and inhaled the perfume of her hair. His hands shook.
With Holt he saw their hosts to their motor.
"Aren't you coming home with us for supper?" asked Mrs. Newberry.
But Holt, who was abominably curious, wished to quiz Stainton, and Stainton, with the wisdom of his years, knew that enough had been done for an initial evening.