Presidio woods as deliciously as if she were
still there.

Then, as the tenor took up the theme, all talking ceased--Ella's husky
whisper, Clara's smoother syllables, and the flat, slow, variable voice
of Kerr--the whole house seemed to sink into stiller repose; the high
chords floated above the heads of the black pit like colored bubbles,
and Flora forgot the sapphire in the triple spell of the singing, the
darkness, and the face she was yet to see. She felt relaxed and released
from her guard by this darkness around her, that blotted out the sea of
faces beneath, that dissolved the walls and high galleries, that
obscured the very outline of the box where she sat, until she seemed to
be poised, half-way up a void of darkness, looking into a pit in the
hollowness of which a voice was singing.

The stage was a narrow shelf of wood swung in that void, from which the
voice sang, and a bare finger of light followed it about from place to
place. The sweet, searching tenor notes, the semblance of passion and
reality the gesticulating Frenchman threw over all the stage, and the
_crescendo_ of the tragedy carried her into a mood that barred out Ella,
barred out Clara, barred out Harry more than any; but, unaccountably,
Kerr was still with her. He was there by no will of hers, but by some
essence of his own, some quality that linked him, as it linked her, to
the passionate subtleties of life. He seemed to her the eager spirit
that was prompting and putting forward this comedy and tragedy playing
on before her. She heard him reasserted, vigorous, lawless, wandering,
in the voice of the mimic strolling player addressing his mimic
audience. The appeal of the tenor to the voiceless galleries,
"Underneath this little play we show, there is another play," seemed
indeed the very voice of Kerr repeating itself. And with the climax of
the sharp tragedy in the middle of the comic stage she placed him
again, but placed him this time in the mimic audience looking on,
neither applauding nor dissenting; but rather as if he watched the play
and played it, too.

The lights went up with a spring. A wave of motion flickered over the
house, the talking voices burst forth all at once, and she saw him,
really saw him for the first time that evening, as in her fancy, part of
the audience; as in her fancy, neither applauding nor dissenting, yet
with what a difference! He leaned back in his chair, and leaned his head
a little back, as if, for wearin