"Let’s go in," she said, glancing at Gunther with a hope that she might find his eyes a little troubled. She signed to him to take the seat behind hers, placing Beecher back of Mrs. Kildair, and while the rest of her party immediately swept the house with their opera-glasses, she remained quiet, conscious of the sudden focus, unwilling to show herself curious of other women. "Look," said Mrs. Kildair to Beecher in a low aside; "Mrs. Bloodgood is in her box. What daring!" she added after a moment’s examination. "She has dressed herself in black." Beecher, following her directions, beheld Mrs. Bloodgood, without a single jewel or a relieving touch of color, sitting proudly, looking fixedly at the stage, disdainful of the stir and gossip which her dramatic appearance occasioned. Behind in the crowded box Mr. Bloodgood was standing, smiling and contented, showing himself with a malicious enjoyment. "How can she do it?" he said. "After the first act," said Mrs. Kildair, with a sudden impulse of generosity, "go and see her. Take Mr. Gunther. It will give her strength." "It is decidedly brilliant," said Lady Mowbray. "The parterre is much more effective than Covent Garden." "There should be a guide to tell us all the histories of these boxes," said Taleza-Corti, with his keen perception of values. "The opera is the record of society. The history of America for the next twenty years will be written here by those who descend from the galleries into the orchestra, and those who force their way from the orchestra into the boxes. I like to think of your millionaires who might have begun up there under the roof. Fonda, our great novelist, says that the opera is the city reduced to the terms of the village. It always impresses me. Magnificent!" No one listened to him. The women nodded from time to time as their glasses encountered those of acquaintances; Beecher, troubled at a figure which he had half perceived in the orchestra and which he sought to distinguish, fancied a resemblance to Nan Charters; Gunther, bored by a spectacle which had no novelty for him, watched Mrs. Kildair, noting the nervous hands and the occasional quickly taken breaths, asking himself what had been the real cause of her absence, half divining in a confused way the truth. Mrs. Fontaine was languidly curious of those who had a right to her interest. She was in her element—jealous of this multitude as an actress, pleased at the fine effect she had produced. And in her triumph she was recalled to the one thing she desired to complete her ambition, to give her that command of this assemblage which she was forced to acknowledge to another. Her glance went to the box in the middle of the horseshoe, as it did covetously each night. "Your father isn’t here tonight," she said to Bruce Gunther with a little surprise. "No. There is some big pow-wow on," he answered.