She was convinced that he wouldn’t have missed the chance to crow. Nevertheless a little of her uneasiness remained, and was still with her, two weeks later, when she went with Harlan to the concert of the new symphony orchestra, on an evening so drenched with rain that she inquired with some anxiety if his car was amphibious.
“If it can’t swim I’m afraid we won’t get there,” she said, as they set off upon the splashing avenue. “Judging by the windows, we aren’t in an automobile, but in one of those tanks that take pictures of ocean life for the movies. I’m not sure it’s a tank though; the old avenue has turned into a river, and perhaps we’re in a side-wheel steamboat. I’m afraid this’ll be bad for your attendance. You’ll have a big deficit to make up in reward for your struggle to make us an artistic people.”
There was to be no deficit, however, she discovered, as they went to their seats in the theatre Harlan’s committee had taken for the concert;—interest in the new organization and in the coming of the renowned Venable had been stronger than the fear of a wetting. The place was being rapidly filled, and, glancing about her, Martha saw “almost everybody and a great many others,” she said.
Not far away from where she and Harlan sat, Lena was in a box with George McMillan. The other seats in the box were vacant; and Lena, sitting close to the velvet rail, and wearing as a contrast to her own whiteness a Parisian interpretation of Spanish passion, in black jet and jet-black, was the most conspicuous figure in the theatre. She leaned back in her chair, her brilliant eyes upon the stage, though there was nothing there except a piano and a small forest of music stands; and Martha thought she looked excited—music was evidently a lively stimulant for her. Her brother, not quite so much within the public view, and possibly wishing his sister were less vividly offered to that view, appeared to the observing Martha as somewhat depressed and nervous. There was no conversation between the brother and sister, though he glanced at Lena from time to time, from the side of his eye.
Martha wondered where Dan was. He would prefer a concert by Sousa’s Band to the French and Russian programme set for this evening, she knew; but the opening of “the Symphony” was in its way a civic occasion; one for which the credit was in some part due to his brother; and she had expected him to be there. “Isn’t Dan coming?” she asked Harlan.