CHAPTER II

AT THE OPERA

It was with a certain nervousness that I mentioned Sullivan’s name to the gentleman at the receipt of tickets—­a sort of transcendantly fine version of Keith Prowse’s clerk—­but Sullivan had not exaggerated his own importance.  They did look after me.  They looked after me with such respectful diligence that I might have been excused for supposing that they had mistaken me for the Shah of Persia in disguise.  I was introduced into Sullivan’s box with every circumstance of pomp.  The box was empty.  Naturally I had arrived there first.  I sat down, and watched the enormous house fill, but not until I had glanced into the mirror that hung on the crimson partition of the box to make sure that my appearance did no discredit to Sullivan and the great lady, his wife.

At eight o’clock, when the conductor appeared at his desk to an accompaniment of applauding taps from the musicians, the house was nearly full.  The four tiers sent forth a sparkle of diamonds, of silk, and of white arms and shoulders which rivalled the glitter of the vast crystal chandelier.  The wide floor of serried stalls (those stalls of which one pair at least had gone for six pound ten) added their more sombre brilliance to the show, while far above, stretching away indefinitely to the very furthest roof, was the gallery (where but for Sullivan I should have been), a mass of black spotted with white faces.

Excitement was in the air:  the expectation of seeing once again Rosetta Rosa, the girl with the golden throat, the mere girl who, two years ago, had in one brief month captured London, and who now, after a period of petulance, had decided to recapture London.  On ordinary nights, for the inhabitants of boxes, the Opera is a social observance, an exhibition of jewels, something between an F.O. reception and a conversazione with music in the distance.  But to-night the habitues confessed a genuine interest in the stage itself, abandoning their role of players.  Dozens of times since then have I been to the Opera, and never have I witnessed the candid enthusiasm of that night.  If London can be naive, it was naive then.

The conductor raised his baton.  The orchestra ceased its tuning.  The lights were lowered.  Silence and stillness enwrapped the auditorium.  And the quivering violins sighed out the first chords of the “Lohengrin” overture.  For me, then, there existed nothing save the voluptuous music, to which I abandoned myself as to the fascination of a dream.  But not for long.  Just as the curtain rose, the door behind me gave a click, and Sullivan entered in all his magnificence.  I jumped up.  On his arm in the semi-darkness I discerned a tall, olive-pale woman, with large handsome features of Jewish cast, and large, liquid black eyes.  She wore a dead-white gown, and over this a gorgeous cloak of purple and mauve.

“Emmeline, this is Carl,” Sullivan whispered.