Page:The Smart Set (Volume 1).djvu/173

Rh He was looking gravely and steadily past Camilla.

"And is it true that in New York there are not enough fashion boxes to go around among all who can afford them, and that millionaires have actually been subjected to the alternative of sitting in the stalls?"

"I never thought of it. Why do you ask?"

"For no reason, but it seems such a pity. Down there they are actually forced to listen to the opera."

"And on the tiers?"

"Oh, they can go to sleep so comfortably after their busy day, except, of course, between the acts."

"I won't have you disrespectful of one of our cherished institutions, and one which, as you would say in Chicago, is so expensive."

"That's just it—you're so unfair about the expense. You merely publish a list of the stockholders, and fail entirely to satisfy public curiosity as to how much everybody in the house is worth. That is what the onlooker feels he is entitled to know. What we want is not a libretto of the opera, but an inventory of the wealth represented by every person in the audience, whether in the first tier or in the parquet."

"Naturally this practical idea prevails out West?"

"In Chicago one may learn anything, from the pedigree of the box-holders to the scandal attached to the old gentleman sitting near the orchestra, by merely asking the attendants."

"What an amiable system—and so comprehensive!"

Camilla had risen to assist Mrs. Trenton in greeting an incursion of callers who had "popped in, just for a second," and agreeably popped out again. She introduced Illington and there were some conventionalities; when they had gone he resumed his interested survey of the audience.

"I'm practically a newcomer, you know," he said, "and some of these people attract me immensely. For instance, the very tall young woman in Mrs. Washington Mayton's box; she can’t be the little Katherine I used to see with two long braids down her back, like the girl in the chocolate advertisement?"

"Yes, that's Katherine. She's getting along and grows frightfully one way. Pity she's so tall, isn't it? Ferdie calls her the Washington Monument."

"And the gorgeous feminine with them—I noticed she was excessively enthusiastic in approving the singers?"

"Mrs. Bond, the second—Frank Bond's new wife. It's her second opera season, and she's crude in some ways. The poor creature lived for years in a town out West where the musical events of the season were the appearances of the Bostonians and the Swiss Bell Ringers. Of the two, she preferred the Bostonians, and the result was that her musical education went entirely to seed."

"But the man who has just come in—that isn't Bond, as I recall him."

"Oh, dear, no. Bond never comes. He buys the box and allows the Maytons the privilege of making believe they're doing the honors. That is Willie Tremaine. His fad is growing rubber trees in his conservatory. The other day he had his picture taken while he posed between two of his largest trees, and Mrs. Escott made a joke about it at a dinner-party. You see, Willie is very short, and when Mrs. Escott was asked what she thought of the picture, she said it was probably accurate, but that it looked like a stretch of the imagination."

"What a poor joke!"

"Wasn't it? The poor thing was forced to explain it to everybody."

Here another brief visitation, after which Camilla found entertainment in the discussion of the first tier, seriatin, and declared that it was a pleasure to so enlighten the ignorant from the wilderness. Illington's gaze presently rested on a pale little woman not of the holy of holies, but whose parquet seat was apparently a rallying point for some clubmen he knew.

"Mrs. Newlington!" he exclaimed. "What is she doing down there?"

Camilla uttered a gurgle of quiet surprise.