"Yes, I see now," said Mrs. Shiffney.
She drew back into her box.
"There she is, Henriette! She seems to be alone. But Heath is sitting behind her in the shadow. I saw him for a minute before he sat down."
Madame Sennier looked at Charmian as Charmian had once looked at her across another opera house. But her mind contemplated Charmian in this hour of her destiny implacably. She said nothing.
Jacques Sennier began to chatter.
At a few minutes past eight the lights went down and the opera began.
Charmian and Claude were alone in their box. On the empty seat beside hers Charmian had laid some red roses sent to her by Alston Lake before she had started. Five minutes after the arrival of the flowers had come a cablegram from England addressed to Claude: "I wish you both the best to-night love. Madre."
Just before the opera began, as Charmian glanced down at her roses, she saw a paper lying beside them on the silk-covered chair.
"What's that?" she said.
"Madre's cablegram," said Claude. "I found I had brought it with me, so I laid it down there. If Madre had come with us she might have occupied that seat. I thought I would let her wish lie there with Alston's roses."