There had been about him, even as he had performed his simple duties as usher in the boxes on this night, an air of mystery. He had walked—more than one had noted this—with the short, quick steps of a girl. His hair, too, was soft and fine, his cheeks like the softest velvet. But then, he was French. His accent told this. And who knows what the French are like? Besides, his name was Pierre. He had said this more than once. And Pierre, as everyone knows, is the name of a boy.
It was during the curtain before the last act that an incident had occurred which, for a few of the resplendent throng, had dimmed the glory of that night.
No great fuss was made about the affair. A slim girl seated in the box occupied by the man whose great wealth had made this opera house possible, had leaned over to whisper excited words in this gray-haired millionaire’s ears. With fingers that trembled, she had touched her bare neck.
With perfect poise the man had beckoned to a broad-shouldered person in black who had until now remained in the shadows. The man had glided forward. Some words had been spoken. Among these words were: “Search them.”
One would have said that the golden-haired usher standing directly behind the box had caught these words for he had suddenly turned white and clutched at the railing to escape falling.
Had you looked only a moment later at the spot where he had stood you might have noted that he was not there. And now here he was on the ledge, still all but concealed by drapes, poised as if for further flight.
And yet he did not flee. Instead, dropping farther into the shadows, he appeared to lose himself in thought.
What were these thoughts? One might suppose that he was recasting in his mind the events of the immediate past, that he read again the look of surprise and consternation on the face of the beautiful child of the very rich when she discovered that the string of beautifully matched pearls, bought by her father in Europe at a fabulous cost, were gone. One might suppose that he once again contemplated flight as the stout, hard-faced detective, who had so opportunely materialized from the shadows, had suggested searching the ushers and other attendants; that he shuddered again as he thought how barely he had escaped capture as, in the darkness attending the last act, he had glided past eagle-eyed sleuth Jaeger, and concealed himself behind the draperies. One might suppose that he lived again those moments of suspense when a quiet but very thorough search had revealed neither the priceless pearls nor his own humble person.
Yes, one might suppose all this. Yet, if one did, he would suppose in vain. Our minds are the strangest creation of God. “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
The young person still half concealed by draperies and quite hidden by darkness was living again, not the scenes enacted among the boxes, but those which had been enacted upon the stage.