As the last measured strain died out the audience reseated itself, the introduction to “La Tosca” sounded, and the curtain rose.  Although the names of the performers were unknown to Kirk, their voices were remarkably good, and he soon became absorbed in the drama.  A sudden lonesomeness surged over him as he recalled another night when he and Darwin K. Anthony had heard these same notes sung.  But then they had sat enthralled by the art of Caruso, Scotti, and the ravishing Cavalieri.  It had been one of the rare hours when he and his father had felt themselves really in sympathy.  The Governor had come down for some fabulous directors’ meeting, he remembered, and had wired his son to run in from New Haven for the evening.  They had been real chums that night, and even at their modest little supper afterward, when the old gentleman had rowed with the waiter and cursed his dyspepsia, they had laughed and chatted like cronies.  Yet a week later they had quarrelled.

With an unexpected access of tenderness, Anthony Jr. longed to see once more that tumbled shock of white hair, that strong-lined face; to hear again the gruff tones of that voice he loved so well.  After all, there were only two Anthonys left in the world, and he had been to blame.  He acknowledged that he had been a ne’er-do-well.  No wonder his father had been harsh, but still—­old Darwin K. should not have been so domineering, so ready to credit all he heard.  Kirk pressed his lips together and swore to make good, if for no other reason than to show his dad.

As the curtain fell on the first act, he rose with the others and, accompanied by Mrs. Cortlandt, made his way down the long passageway and out into a brightly lighted, highly decorated foyer filling now with voluble people.  It was a splendid room; but he had no eyes for it.  His gaze was fixed upon the welcome open-air promenade outside, and his fingers fumbled with his cigarette-case.

“Oh, wait, please,” he heard Edith say, “I want you to meet some one.”

He had done little except respond to meaningless introductions all the evening, and nothing could have pleased him less at the moment.  But, somewhat awkwardly, he began to edge his way through the press in the wake of his hostess.  The next moment he halted and stood stock-still in helpless surprise.

There, not a yard away, was the girl of his dreams demurely bowing to Edith Cortlandt, her hand upon the arm of a swarthy man whom Kirk knew at once as her father.  He felt the blood rush blindingly to his head, felt it drumming at his ears, knew that he must be staring like a man bereft.  Mrs. Cortlandt was speaking, and he caught the name “Garavel” like a bugle-call.  They turned upon him, the Spanish gentleman bowed, and he saw that Chiquita’s little white-gloved hand was extended toward him.

She was the same dainty, desirous maid he had met in the forest, but now splendidly radiant and perfect beyond his imagining.  She was no longer the simple wood-sprite, but a tiny princess in filmy white, moulded by some master craftsman.  As on that earlier meeting, she was thrilling with some subtle mirth which flickered on her lips or danced in the depths of her great, dark eyes.