"Who would have thought it!" said H. C. "The place overflows with wealth and rank. These people might be dukes and duchesses--and look the character much more than many of our 'Coronets and Norman blood.' Yet as we passed Gerona in the train it seemed nothing but an encampment for beggars. Beggars? Let me apologise. Beggars would want something more recherché. In these days that flourishing profession dines at eight o'clock and sleeps on down."
In the foyer, between one of the acts, we came into closer contact with this aristocratic crowd.
It was a very large long room, gorgeously fitted up; great mirrors giving back full-length reflections. Few ladies honoured it with their presence, but a crowd of short, dark, handsome Spaniards went to and fro, smoking cigarettes, wildly gesticulating about Margaret, abusing the unfortunate Siebel, openly passing their opinions upon the ladies of the audience. Mixing freely amongst them we heard many an amusing remark upon people we were able to identify on returning to our seats. At the end of the third act we began to feel like old habitués. A week in Gerona and we should be familiar with every one's history.
"A happy thought, coming here to-night," said H. C. "I am now quite at home amongst these people, and should like to call upon some of them to-morrow. That exquisite creature, for instance, with the lovely eyes, perfect features, and complexion of a blush rose. I believe--yes, I am sure--look--she is gazing at me with a very sweet expression!"
He was growing excited. We grasped his arm with a certain magnetic touch which recalled him to himself. Keepers have this influence on their patients.
"Look at the old woman next to her," he went on indignantly. "Can she be the mother of that lovely girl? She ought to blush for herself. Her dress-bodice ends at the waist. And behind her fan she is actually ogling a toothless old wretch who has just sat down near her."
Here, fortunately, the curtain went up, and H. C.'s emotions passed into another channel.
The performance had equalled our modest expectations. One must not be too critical. If Faust was contemptible and Siebel impossible, Margaret and Mephistopheles saved all from failure. She was pretty and refined, with a certain touching pathos that appealed to her hearers. She sang with grace, too, but her voice was made for nothing larger than a drawing-room, and when the orchestra crashed out the dramatic parts, we had to imagine a great deal.