hing his white gloves.
More people came hurrying over the square to the theatre, and ranged
themselves at the end of the tail. As the hands of the big clock on the
post-office neared the quarter past five, a kind of tremor ran through
the waiting line; it gathered itself more compactly together. One clock
after another boomed the single stroke; sounds came from within the
building; the burly policeman placed himself at the head of the line.
There was a noise of drawn bolts and grating locks, and after a
moment's suspense, light shone out and the big door was flung open.

"Gent--ly!" shouted the policeman, but the leaders of the queue charged
with a will, and about a dozen people had dashed forward, before he
could throw down a stemming arm, on which those thus hindered leaned as
on a bar of iron. Madeleine and Maurice were to the front of the second
batch. And the arm down, in they flew also, Madeleine leading through
the swing-doors at the side of the corridor, up the steep, wooden
stairs, one flight after another, higher and higher, round and round,
past one, two, three, tiers--a mad race, which ended almost in the arms
of the gate-keeper at the topmost gallery.

Dove was waiting with the tickets, and they easily secured the desired
places; not in the middle of the gallery, where, as Madeleine explained
while she tucked her hat and jacket under the seat, the monstrous
chandelier hid the greater part of the stage, but at the right-hand
side, next the lattice that separated the seats at seventy-five from
those at fifty pfennigs.

"This is first-rate for seeing," said Maurice.

Madeleine laughed. "You see too much--that's the trouble. Wait till
you've watched the men running about the bottom of the Rhine, working
the cages the Rhine-daughters swim in."

As yet, with the exception of the gallery, the great building was
empty. Now the iron fire-curtain rose; but the sunken well of the
orchestra was in darkness, and the expanse of seats on the ground floor
far below, was still encased in white wrappings--her and there an
attendant began to peel them off. Maurice, poring over his book, had to
strain his eyes to read, and this, added to the difficulty of the
German, and his own sense of pleasurable excitement, made him soon give
up the attempt, and attend wholly to what Madeleine was saying.

It was hot already, and the air of the crowded gallery was permeated
with various, pungent odours: some people behind them were e