"Heath? And if he weren't, d'you think I'd be spending my last dollar on him? But what do you know of his music more than the others?"
And Crayford's eyes, become suddenly sharp and piercing, fixed themselves on the critic's face.
"I heard some of it one night in his room at the St. Regis."
"Bits of the opera?"
"One bit. But there was something else that impressed me enormously—almost terrible music."
"Oh, that was probably some of his Bible rubbish. But thank the Lord we've got him away from all that. Hulloh, Perkins! Come here to see me get in front?"
In box fifteen, on the ground tier, Mrs. Shiffney settled herself with Madame Sennier, Jacques Sennier, and Jonson Ramer. Susan Fleet was next door with friends, a highly cultivated elderly man, famous as a lawyer and connoisseur, and his wife. Alston Lake's family and most of his many friends were in the stalls, where Armand Gillier had a seat close to a gangway, so that he could easily slip out to pay his homage to Enid Mardon. His head was soaked with eau-de-quinine. On his muscular hands he wore thick white kid gloves. And he gazed at his name on the programme with almost greedy eyes.
Mrs. Shiffney glanced swiftly about the immense house, looking from box to box. She took up her opera glasses.
"I wonder where the Heaths are sitting," she said. "Henriette, can you see them?"
Madame Sennier looked round with her hard yellow eyes.