Ah, yes, they had been there in all their bejewelled and sable-coated splendor. Rubies and diamonds had vied with emeralds and sapphires on this grand occasion. Yes, they had been here. But now they had departed and there remained only this frail boy, hovering there on the ledge like a frightened gray bat.
Why was he here? Certainly a timid-appearing boy would not, without some very pressing reason, remain hidden behind drapes at the edge of a great empty space which until that night had been practically unknown to him.
And, indeed, at this moment the place, with its big empty spaces, its covered seats, its broad, deserted stage, seemed haunted, haunted by the ghosts of other years, by all those who, creeping from out the past, had stalked upon its stage; haunted, too, by those who only one or two short years before had paraded there on a “first night” in splendor, but who now, laid low by adverse circumstances, crept about in places of poverty. Yet, haunted or no, here was this frail boy peeking timidly out from his hiding place as the clock struck one.
He had asked a curious question on this night, had this boy of golden locks and expressive blue eyes. It was during the recess between acts while the curtain was down and the pomp that was Egypt had for a moment been replaced by the pomp that is America. Leaning over the balustrade, this thoughtful boy had witnessed the “Grand Parade” of wealth and pomp that passed below him. Between massive pillars, beneath chandeliers of matchless splendor where a thousand lights shone, passed ladies of beauty and unquestioned refinement. With capes of royal purple trimmed in ermine or sable but slightly concealing bare shoulders and breasts where jewels worth a king’s ransom shone, they glided gracefully down the long corridor. Bowing here and there, or turning to whisper a word to their companions, they appeared to be saying to all the throng that beheld them:
“See! Are we not the glory that is America in all her wealth and power?”
Then it was that this mysterious boy, poised there upon the ledge still half hidden by drapes, had asked his question. Turning to a white-haired, distinguished-looking man close beside him, a man whom he had never before seen, he had said:
“Is this life?”
The answer he received had been quite as unusual as the question. Fixing strangely luminous eyes upon him, the man had said:
“It is a form of life.”
“A form of life.” Even at this moment the boy, standing in the shadows timid and terribly afraid, was turning these words over in his mind. “A form of life.”