while, sauntered away.

In one of these boxes was Sylvia, looking like an angel, only, of
course, much better dressed. Behind her was Annandale. They were quite
an old couple. They had been married fully a year. In the box with
them was Orr.

On the stage a festival was in progress, a festival for ear and eye,
the apogee of Italian art, a production of "Aida." A quarter of a
century and more ago when that opera was first given in Cairo, there
was an accompanying splendor more lavish than it, or any other opera,
has had since. But it was difficult to fancy that even then there was
a better cast. Before the tenor had completed the opening romanza he
had enthralled the house. Good-looking, as tenors should be, stout as
tenors are, he suggested Mario resurrected and returned.

"Celeste Aida!" he sang, and it was celestial. Then at once Amneris,
enacted by a debutante, appeared and the house was treated to what it
had not had since Scalchi was in her prime, a voice with a
conservatory in the upper register, a cavern in the lower and, strewn
between, rich loops of light, of opals, flowers, kisses and stars.

Princess she was and looked, yet, despite the glory of her raiment,
rather a princess in a drawing-room than the daughter of a Pharaoh in
a Memphian crypt. She seemed pleased, sure of her charm, and she
pleased and charmed at sight. The house, the most apathetic--save
Covent Garden--in the world, and, musically, the most ignorant as
well, rose to her.

Sylvia turned to Orr. In his gloved hand was a program. "What a dear!"
she murmured. "Who is she?"

Orr, before answering, looked at Annandale. The latter's eyes were on
the roof. He may have been drinking the song, unconscious of the
singer. But it is more probable that his thoughts were elsewhere,
though hardly in the Tombs, where, during his relatively brief
sojourn, he had lived at the relatively reasonable rate of a hundred
dollars a day.

"A debutante," Orr answered. "She is billed as Dellarandi."

The curtain fell. The box was invaded. Men indebted to Mrs. Annandale
for dinner, or who hoped to be, dropped in. Orr got up and went out.

The second act began. There was an alternating chorus. During it
Amneris sat mirroring her beauty in a glass. Presently her voice
mounted, mounting as mounts a bird and higher. She was joining in the
incomparable duo that ensues. It passed. A march, blown from Egyptian
trumpets, followed, preluding the dance of priestesses wh