After the first suite by the orchestra the great Venable appeared, making his way among the seated musicians and coming forward with an air of affability operatic in its sweeping expressiveness—a pale, handsome, black-haired man of grand dimensions. He needed no costume other than his black clothes and shapely ampleness of white front to make him seem, not an actual man, but a figure from romantic drama, a dweller in enchanted palaces and the master of heroic passions. “I’ve always wanted to see one of those splendid, big, statuesque opera or concert people at home,” Martha whispered to her escort. “I’ve never been near them except when they moved on the grand scale, like this. It would be an experience to see a man like that eat an egg—I can’t imagine it at all. Do you suppose he could?” A moment later, when he began to sing, she was sure he couldn’t; and as the magnificent instrument in his throat continued in operation, he carried her to such thrilling grandeurs of feeling that she could not even imagine herself eating an egg, or eating anything, or ever again doing anything commonplace—for while he sang she, too, dwelt in enchanted palaces, moved on the grand scale, and knew only heroic emotions. But when he had finished the encore he was generous enough to add to this part of his programme, and had left the stage, she underwent a reaction not unusual after such stimulations. “It’s a great voice and he’s a great artist, if I’m equal to knowing either,” she said. “But there’s something about that man—I don’t know what, except it all seems to end in being about himself. It’s so personal, somehow. I’m positive he made every woman in the whole audience wish that he were singing just for her alone. I don’t think music ought to be like that, unless perhaps sometimes when it’s a love-song, and those things he sang weren’t supposed to——” She broke off suddenly, as her glance wandered. “There’s Dan. He got here, after all.” Dan was coming down the outer aisle to the box where Lena sat; and with him was the younger Sam Kohn, the two having just entered the theatre after the business conference that had detained them. Sam was talking hurriedly and earnestly in husky whispers, which he emphasized with many quick gestures; but he left his tall companion at the curtains of the latter’s box. “See you right after the show,” he said, and then went slowly to the series of boxes occupied by his father and brother and their families, while Dan, who looked sallow and tired, Martha thought, stared after him for a moment, then moved forward and seated himself beside George McMillan. Lena gave her husband the greeting of a slightly lifted eyebrow, shown to him in profile; but McMillan leaned toward him and whispered an anxious question.