There was a roar of applause.  The gallery whistled and stamped.  Every one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.  There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose.  The footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the conviction that they had gone out after beer.  All over the house one heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, “Op’ra books—­books for the op’ra—­words and music for the op’ra.”

Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an interchange of visits.  The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.

There was a little titter of an electric bell.  The curtain was about to go up, and a great rush for seats began.  The orchestra were coming back and tuning up.  They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional deep-toned purring from the bass viols.  A bell rang faintly from behind the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up.  The leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while here and there one heard an energetic “Ssh! ssh!” The fourth act was about to begin.

When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience.  She was alone.  She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to her girdle.  She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for the famous quartet in the “great scene.”

But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair.  All music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.  For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted dream.  The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the pulse of a great ocean.  It seemed to him infinitely beautiful, infinitely sad, subdued minor