Having made sure of his seat, he hurried back to Raybeck Square calculating that he could be back within an hour. Bidding the cabman wait, he sprang up to his room, conscious of the fact that Aunt Grace was watching; and after his hurried change he knew by the ajar door of the drawing-room that she was there watching still. But this passed almost unnoticed in the excitement, and once more he was in the cab, eager and with his imagination running riot. "What an idiot I was not to ask the number of their box," he said to himself. He did ask as soon as he reached the opera house, and found it was almost central on the grand tier; but after taking his place he had no opportunity for turning round till the end of the act in progress, and he sat trembling with excitement and wondering whether Marion had recognised him as he entered. The stage, the music, the house crowded with a fashionable assembly, were non-existent to Chester, as he sat there gazing in imagination at a face--the face of the woman who from their first encounter seemed to have taken entire possession of his faculties, enchaining his spirit so that he seemed to live and breathe for her alone. "Will this wretched singing never end?" he said to himself, as one of the great Italian singers filled the vast place with the clear, vibrating tones of her voice. "The fools! The idiots!" he muttered angrily as the plaudits rang out at the end of the scene; and then he sat waiting till at last the drop scene descended and, lorgnette in hand, he rose and, to avoid the air of being too sudden, he slowly swept the grand tier of boxes, beginning on his right near the stage, feeling that Marion must be watching him, and profoundly unconscious of the fact that scores to right and left were doing the same. When the field of his glass drew nearer to the box upon which he sought to focus it, he grew slower in his movements, as if desirous of delaying the supreme delight for a few moments longer, but at last he stopped short, gazing with every fibre thrilling at the beautiful, imperious face which held him as if fascinated. The faces of her companions were to right and left, each occupying a corner of the box, while Marion was seated a little back, looking dull and preoccupied, while she slowly waved a large black fan, which threw her face into partial shadow from time to time. For the first minute, as he drank in the various beauties of the countenance which seemed to be so near, Chester felt that she must be seeing him, but directly after he knew that she was looking dull and listless, and as if she felt the scene before her wearisome in the extreme.