It was a dove-colored silk with a black velvet stripe through it. I showed her a shawl which John had given me,—a pale-yellow gauzy fabric with a gold-thread border,—and told her to make me up. She produced quite a marvellous effect; for this baby understood the art of dress to perfection. She made my hair into a loose mass, rolling it away from my face; yet it was firmly fastened. Then she shook out the shawl, and wrapped me in it, so that my head seemed to be emerging from a pale-tinted cloud. John said I looked outlandish, but Leonora thought otherwise. She begged him for some Indian perfume, and he found an aromatic powder, which she sprinkled inside my gloves and over my shawl.
We found the opera-house crowded. Our seats were near the stage. John sat behind us, so that he might slip out into the lobby occasionally; for the opera was a bore to him. The second act was over; John had left his seat; I was opening and shutting my fan mechanically, half lost in thought, when Leonora, who had been looking at the house with her lorgnette, turned and said,—
"Is not that your friend of this morning, on the other side, in the second row, leaning against the third pillar? There is a queenish-looking old lady with him. He hasn't spoken to her for a long time, and she continually looks up at him."
I took her glass, and discovered Redmond. He looked back at me through another; I made a slight motion with my handkerchief; he dropped his glass into the lap of the lady next him and darted out, and in a moment he was behind me in John's seat.
"Who is with you?" he asked.
"Brother," I answered.
"You intoxicate me with some strange perfume; don't fan it this way."
I quietly passed the fan to Leonora, who now looked back and spoke to him. He talked with her a moment, and then she discreetly resumed her lorgnette.
"What happened for two years after I left B.? The last year I know something of."
"Breakfast, dinner, and tea; the ebb and flow of the tide; and the days of the week."