“Perhaps we’ll hear her to-night,” said Jerry. “Don’t lose your nerve, Joy; you’ll sing circles around her some day. Go and run a tub and do some scales—they won’t be heard over the tub if you close the door.” “I hope you’re not running a tub for _me_,” Félicie objected; “too many baths are bad for me, I’m funny that way.” Strange anomaly—the Félicie who had everything about her as neat as a bee-hive, but slept in sealed rooms and disagreed with baths! An hour later they admitted they were fit to sit in anyone’s box at the opera. Félicie was almost bewilderingly lovely in pale green velvet; Jerry was audacious and stunning in low-cut purple with cerise ostrich feathers; Joy wore a cloth-of-gold that Jerry had ripped from an old model of hers and put together in a few simple lines. “With your hair,” said Jerry, looking her over in professional pride, “that get-up’s a knock out.” Joy found herself wishing that Jim was going to see her, instead of the Princeton youths. “Wait till we hit the diamond horseshoe!” Jerry was saying. “Although we’re probably higher up than that.” “I wish I had some diamonds to wear,” Félicie sighed. “I do love diamonds so.” “If you’d give in to Greg, you might have one,” Jerry suggested. “One about the size of a pin-point! I couldn’t stand that. Men don’t half appreciate what it means to a girl to have a ring that she won’t have to be ashamed of. When I get one, I want a good one, as long as it’s a thing I’ll have to wear all my life.” “Oh, so you’ve thought up another argument now for not getting married for four years,” said Jerry. “Now you’re picking on me again!” The ring of the telephone announcing that their escorts awaited them downstairs interrupted here, and they sailed down after a mere ten minutes for last rites of re-powdering, going over one’s hair, and general touching up. Gregory Stevens was as dark as Félicie, scarcely more than an eager boy, and very much in love, as Joy saw and could have seen if she had not been told. They ate at the Belmont, and throughout dinner Félicie and Greg carried on a low-toned conversation, refusing to be drawn into the general chatter. They reached the opera late, and Joy lost herself in a heaven of sound oblivious to the whispering all about her. The first grand opera she had ever heard; small wonder that she could not come out of her trance between the acts, to enjoy the sensation of being a beautiful girl sitting in a box at the Opera. A little before the end Harry pulled her back to the world of Excitement-Eaters by whispering: “Come on, we don’t want to be caught in this mob; we’re going somewhere to dance.”